KEITH HANEY
sor of the Mid-West series, and to each individual
company that supports us.”
How did you and your team develop a plan
to return to racing when things started to
calm down?
Basically, Oklahoma wasn’t hit very hard with
the pandemic, although there have been people
who’ve had it and passed from it. Our governor,
a very good governor, decided let’s get [the state]
open, stage 1. We just happened to be in that
phase 1 of reopening America.
At that time, we didn’t know if spectators would
be allowed, so we just took the assumption that
we would have the race without fans. Right before
that, the mayor didn’t like some of the ideas but
then said he would back the governor. With the
dealerships that I own part of in this area, I ended
up contacting our counsel there and they knew
the people at the mayor’s office and the county.
They made a phone call and clarified it for us, got
it in writing almost that said that we could have
spectators at Tulsa.
Then Todd went to work. He deals in the environment
stuff now. He went to work on a reopening
plan – a full breakdown, and pretty much every
racetrack is using it now. Chris Blair at World Wide
Technology Raceway in St. Louis was a big part
of that as well. We put a plan together, posted it
publicly, then ultimately we were lucky enough to
have fans. We could have 50 percent occupancy
“WE KNEW WE
WERE SETTING THE
FOUNDATION FOR
OTHER TRACKS TO
OPEN. THE THINGS
THAT WERE PUT IN
PLACE AND WHAT
WE ENFORCED,
ANYBODY THAT
WATCHED IT, SAW
THAT IT WAS DONE
EXACTLY THE WAY
IT WAS SUPPOSED
TO BE DONE.”
and we chose to have 25 percent for the Throwdown
at T-Town, which was the first major event
that happened anywhere in the country.
We had three local news channels and CBS national
there. They all talked about us, and all of it
was good. We ultimately had a little over 12,000
fans. Our pay-per-view was good. Our racer turnout
was spectacular and our race was great. We
were just fortunate enough to be that track that
just happened to be in the right area to open up.
You talk about the attention this race received.
Did you feel a responsibility to run
everything to the T as a positive example for
how races could be run during the crisis?
Todd and I knew we were going to be scrutinized
and watched, from NHRA, PDRA and other
organizations. Mainly NHRA because we’re an
NHRA track. We knew that although we wouldn’t
be perfect, we knew we were setting the foundation
for other tracks to open and felt like we did
exactly that. The things that were put in place
and what we enforced, anybody that watched
it, saw that it was done exactly the way it was
supposed to be done.
There seems to be a lot of attention, new cars
and new fans surrounding the Mid-West Pro
Mod Series, especially after being the first series
to start racing again. How do you capitalize
on that and continue to grow?
I think that to continue to grow, we just have
to continue to do what we say we’re going to do.
I feel like I haven’t had a marketing partner leave
us. The series continues to get phone calls from
tracks asking us to bring it there. As long as we
continue to deliver what we say we’re going to,
the series is going to continue to be prosperous. DI
74 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 157