The Vault
THE KELLYS – IRISH PRIDE
Posted on: Monday March 17, 2025
Kris Kelly in victory lane following a Stateline Challenge victory at Norway Speedway in 2016. (Tim Soper photo)
Mike Kelly began helping his Dad – Vernon “Bud” Kelly wrench on his old Dodge race car in the late ‘60’s.
“I remember being 14 years old when I started helping out,” Kelly said. “It was an old two-door coupe. They’d race it at Escanaba and Norway. Dad and Frankie Bergen owned it.”
Kelly got his first chance behind the wheel after Bud and Frankie were too drunk to race the car themselves. “My very first race they had these telephone poles and I wound up hitting a fence post instead,” Kelly chuckled. “I didn’t hurt the car so that was important. That first race was at Escanaba.”
The car number Kelly sported was 19 when he first started racing. Kelly would later switch to 77. “It was just easier to identify the 77 I guess,” Kelly said. “I still helped those guys out for a bit until I got my own car. My first car of my own was a ’57 Chevy I bought from a guy in Powers, Michigan. I saw it just sitting in the field and when I graduated high school in ’72 I decided to go racing.”
Racers in the early ‘70’s didn’t have the luxury of fancy enclosed racing haulers, and most were forced to build their own trailers or simply tow their battered racers to the track with a chain or tow bar. “My hauler was a 1946 General Motors truck,” Kelly explained. “I drove the car up on two ramps. I rigged it up so the ramps tilted up.”
The old truck was reliable – but not fast. “We left Norway five hours early to go race at Francis Creek (141 Speedway in Wisconsin south of Green Bay) one time,” Kelly said. “It only ran 45 miles an hour.”
Kelly wasn’t afraid to go run different tracks and each one seemed to provide its own adventure. “One time I went to the dirt track in Superior, Wisconsin and I still had a windshield in my car,” Kelly said. “The track was full of rocks and a rock smashed the windshield. Totally destroyed it. I was there with Tim Faull. We removed what was left of the windshield. We ended up taking a manhole cover and mounting it where the windshield would be.”
Kelly kept racing when the tracks in Escanaba and Norway switched to pavement in the late ‘70’s. Kelly was a sportsman champion at Norway and eventually would move up to the late models. “Mark Miller and I had some really good battles in the sportsman division,” Kelly recalled. “When we moved up to late model Bobby Iverson was fast. Joe Haferkorn ran a late model. Ron Baciak was there. I remember sometimes we’d have 45 cars a night.”
Lack of funds and running his own repair shop kept Kelly from competing on a weekly basis back then. “I sort of picked and chose my races,” Kelly explained. “Early on in my late model career I was known as the “weenie heat” special. I was always on the pole of the first heat. I was out to lunch early on.”
Well noted car builder Mike Randerson from Freedom, Wisconsin approached Kelly one night at Norway. “Mike came up to me and said “call me if you get a chance.” I can build you a fast race car.” It was around ’84 or ’85 when I drove to his shop on a Saturday night. He built me a Randercar. We bought a couple of motors from B & B race engines. We were off to the races.”
The decision to go with Randerson paid dividends as Kelly would score eight feature wins and multiple fast time awards within the next two years. Kelly expanded his racing ventures, battling on WIR’s bigger half-mile. “The fields at Kaukauna were tough – especially for those Red, White and Blue shows on Sunday afternoons,” Kelly recalled. “You had guys from all over the place – not just the WIR locals. Guys like Dick Trickle. Tom Reffner. Scott Hansen. Joe Shear. Hell – even the semi-features were competitive! They used to give out trophies to the semi-feature winners too back then.”
One of the biggest highlights of Kelly’s career was beating Trickle to win the Stateline Challenge at Norway. “It was around lap 85 in the 100 lapper and I broke a rocker arm,” Kelly said. “Trickle was on my tail. If the race would have gone one more lap he would have beaten me. That race will always stick out.”
When it comes to sizing up who his biggest rival was on his home turf at Norway Kelly quickly points to “The Ranger City Racer” Bob Menor of Wausaukee. “Bob was a nice guy and we actually became very close friends,” Kelly said. “But on the track he would never give you an inch. Never. We’d trade paint. Sparks would fly. If Bob was behind you your car was guaranteed to have a bunch of x’s and o’s at the end of the night. He was just tough.”
For much of Mike Kelly’s career he earned a reputation as a “checkers or wreckers” type of driver. “I remember one night after the races at Norway some guy in a wheelchair stopped at the back of my car and said to someone he was with “This is W.W,” Kelly said. “I asked him “what does that mean?” He replied “because you either win or you wreck!” I laughed so hard.”
Mike Kelly
Away from the track Kelly owned his own mechanics shop and built auto supply stores in Norway and Florence, Wisconsin that his sons Kris and Toby run. Kelly moved to Appleton and continued to build race cars – putting his son Kris in a WIR late model. “Kris won two titles down there and Toby is a great crew chief,” Kelly said. “Those boys of mine are my pride and joy. They’ve got their priorities straight. They put their families and their businesses first before racing. I’ve seen a lot of guys lose their businesses or get divorced because of racing. I’m 65-years-old now and I’ll only go to a race that they are competing in.”
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The first actual laps Toby and Kris Kelly turned competitively were in go karts. “I remember Gene Coleman had like a paved eighth mile track out by his shop in Menominee around ’89 or so,” Kris Kelly said. “I was 11 and Toby was 15.”
As soon as they two were old enough to grab a wrench they started helping Dad in the shop in the early ‘80’s. “Back then the rules were much more strict about teenagers going into the pits,” Kris Kelly said. “So when Dad would run the Red, White and Blue races at WIR in the early to mid-80’s I remember leaving Norway at 7 o’ clock in the morning to head to Kaukauna. We were too young so we sat on that grass hill all day long. It would be me, Toby, my cousin Michelle and my Mom. Whenever Dad raced we never missed a show.”
Toby got the first crack behind the wheel in 1990. “Dad bought one of Rod Wheeler’s old sportsman cars that he ran for John and Jim Anthony,” Toby Kelly said. “I just ran that one year. There were a boatload of late models at Norway. C features were the norm most nights. I remember one year during the Stateline Challenge they had A, B, C, D and even an “E” feature there were so many cars.”
The racing career for Toby was brief – a one-and-done. “I ended up going to college at Michigan Tech and my racing was done.”
It was a few years later in 1996 where Kris made his racing debut in the equally competitive street stock ranks. “It was pretty obvious to me that Kris was the brother that had the talent behind the wheel,” Toby confessed. “So I took over the role as crew chief. We make a good team and I’ve been Kris’ crew chief ever since.”
It wasn’t long before Kris Kelly made the inevitable jump to the late models. Like his father, Kris was tough on his home turf at Norway but wasn’t afraid to spread his wings at run other tracks like WIR, even chasing the ASA Midwest Tour for a few seasons, where they raced tracks in several Midwestern states.
Kris Kelly became the first U.P. driver to win a track championship on WIR’s half-mile – winning the late model crowns in 2007 and 2009. “That was a deal where basically Toby and I would drive down from Norway and Dad would have the car already prepared ready to go,” Kris Kelly said. “We’d just show up and run. Dad had two or three guys helping him out. He busted his tail to make sure we were fast all year. There were some nights the car would drive itself. It was really fun to drive.”
The Kelly brothers have been through thick and thin – both at their home track at Norway and on the road. “I remember the weekend from hell we had back in 2008,” Kris Kelly recalled. “It started at Norway Friday on Fan Appreciation night. We got caught up in a bad wreck. The car was tore up on both the front and back end. I had to work all day Saturday so Toby pulled basically two all-nighters to fix the car. We had an ASA race at Shakopee, Minnesota Sunday. That was the car we were gonna take. Toby somehow patched it back together.”
“It was in August and was one of those hot, humid days,” Toby recalled. It was 93 degrees. We rolled into Shakopee on virtually no sleep whatsoever. Before he gets in the car Kris passes out from heat exhaustion. He was toast. His body shut down said “I’m done.” ”They called the meat wagon and hauled him off. So I’m sitting here with a practice session – worked almost 36 hours to get this car ready and my brother passed out. I’ve got no driver.
“Luckily the guy from Tesar Racing Engines happened to be standing right there. He called the local Jon Lemke who came and shook the car down for us. That was the weirdest thing – I’ve never ever had anyone but Kris or Dad drive the cars I was the crew chief for. As it turned out Mom went to the hospital with Kris. He made it back from the hospital and came back and raced. That story it just goes to show you how many hours you sometimes have to put in to be competitive in this sport. You lack sleep. You don’t eat right. I remember many Thursday nights we’d drive our hauler down to WIR when we were racing Dad’s car. We’d leave right from Kaukauna to Grundy Speedway in Illinois or Cedar Rapids in Iowa. We’d park right on the dragstrip. Those were some hectic, crazy times!”
The Kelly’s recall running an ASA Midwest Tour show at Iowa Speedway in Newton, Iowa. The track was a ¾ mile oval – twice the size of their home track at Norway. “Newton was not an easy place for a Norway guy to go to,” Kris Kelly said. “In fact I remember Jamie Iverson even said to us “I don’t think we belong here.” Guys like Chris Wimmer and Tim Schendel were pretty fast there because they ran in the ReMax Challenge Series races there. You’re going 160 mph down the straightaway and using no brake. Lap 80 was the first lap I didn’t use any brake.
I’m used to Norway where you bonsai the car hard into the corner and mash the brakes! That was a helluva trip. We slapped the wall in practice. I think we still wound up 14th or 15th that day.”
When it comes to victories that standout – winning the Stateline Challenge at Norway in 2016 is one of the highlights of Kris Kelly’s career. “Granted the field may not have been as stacked as it had been in recent years,” Kelly admitted. “But there were probably five times prior to that when we had a winning car and something would happen. A part would break or we’d get caught up in something.” As this book goes to print Kris and his Dad Mike are the only father-son duo to each claim a Stateline championship.
As the years have marched on the Kelly’s have seen vast changes in the evolution of the super late model. “Really it’s overwhelming to me actually as to the knowledge consuming the whole car these days,” Toby Kelly admitted. “The technology is tops. It’s a never ending battle. You’ve really got to ‘keep up with the Jones’ so to speak if you want to remain competitive today’s late models.”
Finding crew help has also been a challenge for most race teams in recent years. The Kelly’s are no exception. “We have anywhere from five to six people who travel with us when we go away to race,” Kris Kelly said. Everybody’s busy. Our Mom cleans the race hauler and makes sure there is plenty of food for everybody. So we’ve been lucky over the years. It’s all those little things that take time. It is tough finding crew help – especially as we get older because they all have families too. Races are won and lost in the shop. Toby and I are pretty particular about how we do things but we do have tasks. “
“The traveling over the years was always fun especially when you consider the names we’ve raced against all these years,” Toby Kelly said. “We ran against the Holzhausens and the Trickles and all the other NASCAR guys they’d bring in for those tour races. These days it’s the Ty Majeski’s of the world. To me that’s the favorite part. It’s the people you meet. The drivers. The track officials.”
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