{"id":90139,"date":"2023-10-26T12:18:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T12:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/keith-haney-wins-2023-mid-west-drag-racing-series-pro-mod-title\/"},"modified":"2024-01-20T23:51:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T23:51:53","slug":"keith-haney-wins-2023-mid-west-drag-racing-series-pro-mod-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/keith-haney-wins-2023-mid-west-drag-racing-series-pro-mod-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith Haney Wins 2023 Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod Title"},"content":{"rendered":"

It came down to the last of eight events in the 2023 Summit Racing Equipment Mid-West Drag Racing Series presented by J&A Service when veteran driver Keith Haney sealed the deal on October 21 at Xtreme Raceway Park on his second MWDRS Pro Mod championship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Haney, who also is the founder and owner of the MWDRS, went into the event holding a slim five-point advantage over second-place Steven Whiteley.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After qualifying third, Haney did his job Saturday afternoon, driving his nitrous-boosted \u201cBlack Mamba\u201d 2019 Camaro to a 3.65-second win at 205.48 mph over Tony Strachan in the opening round of racing. Meanwhile, second-place starter Whiteley left 13-thousandths of a second too soon, negating a 3.66 pass that would have advanced him past Aaron Wells, who was forced to shut down early.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very surreal, I guess you could call it, but it was a hard-fought battle all the way to the finish,\u201d Haney said after clinching his second Pro Mod championship and third MWDRS season title after doubling up in 2018 as the Drag Radial and Pro Mod champions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSteven Whiteley has become a good friend of mine, and he\u2019s a fierce competitor. Great on the light, fast, wonderful family and team. I\u2019m more nervous racing him than I am anybody in the series,\u201d Haney said of his season-long rival. \u201cBut I\u2019m glad it\u2019s over and we won.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Haney and his Tulsa-based team, led by nitrous tuning wizard and crew chief Brandon Switzer, combined for three wins in six final-round appearances over eight events in the 2023 MWDRS season.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to that car, I owe everything to Brandon Switzer. He\u2019s a literal genius with it,\u201d Haney declared. \u201cHe also taught me how to drive better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the middle of last year, he sat me down, showed me my mistakes as a driver. So he taught me how to drive better, which made a big difference. I finished the last three years in third place and this year in first place. And I owe that to Brandon, his continuous effort to work on the program and run the ETs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Haney said his team, including 11-year crewman Dale Hancock, engine expert Shane Goodnight, plus Steve \u201cToken\u201d Cooks and new hire Bobby Savedra, all came together in a way he\u2019s never experienced before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about our preparation, I told my team this and they grasped that championships are not won at the racetracks. They\u2019re mostly won in the shop with the preparation, the attention to detail, with everything that matters the most,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I owe it all to my team, but to my wife Misty and the kids, too. The thing that changed mainly this year, the middle of last year really, is that we built the race shop, everything\u2019s at the house now. It\u2019s a lot better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s Xtreme finale, Wells recovered to beat Keith Goolsby in the semis, while Haney made a solo pass to reach the final round.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Haney seemed to forget some of Switzer\u2019s lessons once he got there last weekend as he was way late on the tree, negating a quicker 3.65 at 205.10 while Wells posted 3.72 at 206.42 to win the final MWDRS event of the year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI let my team down in the race, meaning after the championship was won,\u201d the new champ freely admitted. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize the level of stress and the energy that it takes away from you by always being on edge.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went up there, I was so relaxed and I made the comment to myself that we don\u2019t have any pressure. Well, I ended up cutting the worst light that I\u2019ve cut in probably two, three years. I was just too relaxed. I forgot to finish the job and I apologized to my guys for that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Haney said he was racing this year in memory of chassis builder Jerry Bickel, who built the fan-favorite \u201cBlack Mamba\u201d but passed away in April this year and my great friend Ronnie Hobbs. He also credited Switzer Dynamics, Pat Musi Race Engines, Icon Forged Pistons, Stroud Safety, Race Star Wheels, Total Seal, Strange Engineering and Kryptonite Kuztoms among his longest-standing supporters, as well as singled out primary sponsor Summit Racing Equipment for its long-standing support.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know Summit\u2019s got plenty of championships, but I don\u2019t know how many Pro Mod championships they got \u2014 but they\u2019ve got one now,\u201d Haney happily declared.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, despite earning the right to carry the No. 1 on his car again next season, Haney stressed he\u2019s far from resting on his laurels. In fact, he promises to have something coming soon to shake the sport of drag racing to its core.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019ll be before PRI (Dec. 7-9) so people can plan what they\u2019re going to do in 2024,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt is for Pro Mods in particular, but it\u2019s for other classes, too. And when I say the biggest announcement, the biggest announcement of any promoter, any series, anything, it is the biggest. What\u2019s coming will shock everybody.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The post Keith Haney Wins 2023 Mid-West Drag Racing Series Pro Mod Title<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated | Drag Racing News, Opinion, Interviews, Photos, Videos and More<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It came down to the last of eight events in the 2023 Summit Racing Equipment Mid-West Drag Racing Series presented by J&A Service when veteran driver Keith Haney sealed the deal on October 21 at Xtreme Raceway Park on his second MWDRS Pro Mod championship.\u00a0 Haney, who also is the founder and owner of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,78117,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-race-pages","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91295,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90139\/revisions\/91295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}