Josh Ruby, left and Nathan Kilwine, right, are two of the four owners of Kevco Racing. They operate the business and there are also two silent partners, Todd Klees and Matt Bleess. The company recently moved from Fairmont into a building on North Main Street in Blue Earth, which they totally remodeled.

There is a new business in Blue Earth, but actually neither the business itself or the building they recently moved into could be considered new.

Kevko Racing is now located in a building on North Main Street, across from the west entrance to the Faribault County Fairgrounds. It had formally been the site of Tafco many years ago.

Kevko Racing had been located in Fairmont for many years, but the company was outgrowing the space in the building located there.

“We had spent several years looking at options,” Kevko Racing co-owner Nathan Kilwine says. “We looked at some sites in Fairmont, or expanding our building there.”

It was another co-owner, Todd Klees, who first looked at the old Tafco site.

“He had come to Blue Earth to check out the former John Deere building, but there was another business looking at that,” Kilwine says. “But he saw this building empty right next to it. The square footage was right, but the condition of it wasn’t.”

It took a few years to get the deal done, says another co-owner, Josh Ruby.

“There were lots of complications, including it being tied up in probate courts in Florida,” Ruby says. “And then the offices of the lawyers handling the case was hit by a hurricane.”

Eventually the deal was made. Then the company got busy with remodeling the whole building in Blue Earth.

“It needed quite a bit of work,” Ruby says. Both Ruby and Kilwine had good words to say about the remodeling. They hired United Builders and say they got the job done quickly and were easy to work with. “They did a fantastic job,” Ruby adds.

So just what does Kevko Racing do? They are a manufacturing plant for items for race cars.

“Our main two products are oil pans and drive shafts designed for race cars of all types,” Kilwine says. “We make all kinds of standard racing aluminum, coated oil pans and we also do custom work. We specialize in both steel and carbon fiber drive shafts.”

They also do other custom work, including things like valve covers and gas tanks.

They have a large inventory of products on hand, usually over 2,000 items, which is one reason they needed to expand their space.

“We had about 7,200 square feet in our building in Fairmont,” Kilwine says. “And now we have 17,000 square feet.”

The front of the building is office space and a large warehouse space. The attached quonset area on the southwest side is the shop area. They have a whole new ventilation system in the shop, and other improvements throughout the site.

This is the busiest time of year for the company. While they usually keep a very large inventory on hand, it is being shipped out constantly this time of year. They build up inventory over the winter months.

While they do sell items direct to customers, most of their product goes to 10 distributors located around the country.

“We do have a website where orders can be placed,” Kilwine says. “But we have found it to be most effective to use distributors.”

Kilwine is mainly in charge of the office and shipping, while Ruby is mainly in charge of managing the shop. Although, both can do whatever needs to be done.

Besides them, there are six full time employees working in the shop and one in the shipping department.

“Our other two partners in the business are basically silent partners,” Kilwine explains. “They are Todd Klees and Matt Bleess. They both co-owned a company called EZ Chassis.”

Kilwine lives in Albert Lea, Ruby lives in Lakota, Iowa, Bleess was originally from Blue Earth but now lives in Chatfield, and Klees lives in Wabasha.

How did these four get together as partners in a business?

“We all knew each other through racing,” Kilwine explains. “So we got together to buy Kevko Racing over 10 years ago.”

Ruby says he entered the partnership because he was employed by Kevko for the past 18 years. The Kevko company had started in 1986, 40 years ago, by a man named Kevin Kolowski, hence the Kevko name.

“We are pretty happy with the move,” Kilwine says. “The layout fit pretty good, and we just did it from scratch. We still have more work to do, including constructing a better office space, but overall everything is going well.

There was one more thing he wanted to let the Blue Earth community know.

“We are very happy and excited to be here in Blue Earth,” he added. “Everyone has been welcoming and we feel happy to have made the move.”