5/5/2025
Knoxville Raceway
The Mad Man and Tony VerMeer: High Expectations in 2025
A fixture at Knoxville Raceway for 25 seasons, Kerry Madsen and the 55 car are looking solid as they enter their second season in a new partnership known as VMR (VerMeer Madsen Racing). Kerry is originally from Sydney, Australia, but has called Knoxville home since 1998. After nearly three decades piloting sprint cars in both Australia and America, Madsen hopes this partnership with Tony VerMeer will be his most solid one yet.
The partnership between Kerry Madsen and Tony VerMeer isn’t a new combo. The duo decided late February of 2024 to once again team up and partner in a regional 55 car, focusing mainly on Knoxville Raceway. Madsen and VerMeer previously raced together in the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Knoxville seasons weekly at Knoxville Raceway; winning the track championship in 2005.
2008 found Kerry on the World of Outlaws Tour, forcing a separation between the two, as Madsen wanted to focus more on nationally, while VerMeer wanted to focus more on regional racing near Knoxville.
The Ver Meer Motorsports #55 was committed in 2023 to running the All Stars season with Hunter Schuerenberg as the driver. Later that season, Tony parted ways with Schuerenberg and had Buddy Kofoid in the seat for Ohio Speedweeks and had great success. Buddy had previous commitments after speedweeks so that left the Tony and the 55 team without a driver once again. That’s when Tony called his old friend, Kerry and offered him the ride for the rest of the 2023 All Star Season where they finished 3rd in All Star points.
Once the 2023 season was over, Tony started taking calls from numerous drivers and ultimately hired Chris Windom for the 2024 season where they would join the newly formed High Limit Series with their national car. It was then that Kerry and Tony discussed starting a local (to Knoxville) team.
“My train of thought is that if I’m a bit more involved in the team, maybe there will be stability. It’s hard to drive a car for a season then swap cars/teams. You get a lot of ideas in your head (in the off season) so that is a good time to work on them. The national car is 100% Tony’s car. The VMR (Ver Meer Madson racing) is more of a partnership where Tony has more primary financial responsibilities, while I am more day-to-day operations and team manager,” Madsen discussed.
VerMeer added, “When 2023 ended Kerry, Clinton Boyles & the national 55 car had really good speed, we were consistently on the podium and won an All Star race, so when I made the decision to hire Windom for that car, I knew I wanted to try and put a more local team together with Kerry.”
When asked about the organization of the team, Madsen stated, “It’s a fifty-fifty deal based out of Knoxville, and it began last season. It was harder than I thought it would be year one. Everything post Covid in the sprint car world is more expensive, harder to get, longer wait time. It’s just different and things have changed. It’s so much harder to get (a team) started from scratch than before. We had nothing when we decided to do this, had to buy everything from scratch. Our goal at the time was to get things going and to go race. We decided to be based around Knoxville. The main goal for 2024 was lots of podiums; but weirdly we had a lot of bad luck. On the back side though, we weren’t organized or a good enough team to deal with any adversity whatsoever. It’s strange how bad luck lingers when you’re not prepared. We had bad luck at Husets while leading races, missed a few points races but still ended up 6th in points.
We did win the Billy Alley 360 Eagle show at the end of year which was a huge highlight. We wanted to focus on Knoxville for points, but also missed a few races there due to engine issues. We still finished 9th.”
As with any newly formed team, there is always a lot to do behind the scenes and a lot of learning that has to come for everything to align and fall into place. “The growth of sprint car racing is going strong, which is a direct reflection of the health of small businesses in America. If you look at last weekend (April 26), there were forty 410 sprint cars at Knoxville compared to twenty-seven cars at a World of Outlaws show- and I reckon the competition at Knoxville was more competitive”, Madsen said. It’s an exciting time for sprint car racing and Madsen is optimistic about the growth of the sport.
With 2024 behind them, Madsen feels better prepared for the season ahead with the young team. “Our goals for 2025 are to be fast, top 5’s, podiums, wins; to have consistency. We need to go out and be fast and have a clean year and keep building the team. I see this as a long-term partnership with Tony. It’s already a huge improvement 15 months down the road from where we stared. We have a good engine program at the moment as well (James & Charlie Fisher engines).” Continuing to build the team with crew and car chief, Doug Rankin, Madsen says they are much more solid and ready to offer someone a full-time job.
The 55 car is activity looking for a new team member to join Kerry and Doug. VerMeer also states, “2025 will be different than 2024 as we are miles ahead of a year ago team wise. Last year everything was an unknown. We’d show flashes of being a good team but never put it all together. This year we expect to contend for wins and podiums.”
When asked about running a 360 or traveling with the 410, Madsen stated that they plan to run The 360 Knoxville Nationals, but the team is not prepared to do double duty weekly. They will try to get one or two nights in before the Nationals, or if a good paying 360 race in the area, fans may see them attend a race here and there. Ideally, Kerry hopes to race about sixty regional races this year. This will allow them to grow the team to its full potential. “The team is solidly fast. I’m more interested in having a team that is known for being really quick and fast, than being known for being a national team.”
“We are currently looking for partners to join our newly formed team based out of Knoxville,” VerMeer said, “so if anyone would like to discuss the possibility of joining the VMR 55 team please contact either one of us.”
Tony and Kerry want to thank their partners of the VMR 55 team, which include: TK Concrete, Maxim Trucking & Materials, Zip Bonds, Elite Installations, Pave Grade, CLK Landscape, Jersey Freeze, US Equipment, Maxima Oil, CS Design, Janssen Custom Fabrication and Pinnacle Graphix.
Article Credit: Joanne Cram
Submitted By: Eric Arnold
