“For Racers, By Racers,” states Mid-West Drag Racing Series Founder and Osage Casino Tulsa Raceway Park Co-owner Keith Haney.
Early in 2017, a group of racers realized that there were a lot of Mid-West based Pro Mod teams sitting at home and not racing. The reason for their lack of participation was the fact that most major Pro Mod events are staged on the East Coast, thereby adding a lot of additional travel expenses and time off work to compete in these series. The Mid-West Pro Mod Series was created to alleviate this problem and allow Mid-West racers the opportunity to compete in the central US without having to travel a long distance.
Drag racing is a sport built on passion, but passion alone can’t keep the lights on, employees paid, and the track gates open. For that, a track needs to be profitable, offering a facility an event that make its customers, racers, fans and sponsors want to come back time after time. Keith Haney helped create the Mid-West Pro Mod Series (MWPMS), a professional drag racing organization that delivers a generous sponsor package, star drivers, immaculate cars and an unrivaled eighth-mile show to complement each host track’s special event. This group of racers formed the MWPMS to make a place for Nitrous, Roots-Blower, Turbocharged, Pro-Chargers and Screw Blown Racers to compete on a level playing field. They decided to keep it simple (in the early days) - one class that promoted parity among the different combinations.
They also wanted to stage well-run events at premier tracks in conjunction with their existing – well attended - large scale events. In 2019, we ran a total of 9 events: 2 at Worldwide Technology Raceway (Formerly Gateway Motorsports Park), 2 at Tulsa Raceway Park, 1 at the Texas Motorplex, 1 at Xtreme Raceway Park, 1 at Beech Bend Raceway, and 1 at Memphis International Raceway.
In addition to these events the series was also invited by NHRA to hold an exclusive 22-car invitational event in conjunction with the NHRA national event held in Dallas in October 2019. The MWPMS became the first eighth mile Pro Mod organization invited to compete on the NHRA stage with the 330-MPH Nitro and Pro Stock cars.
The racers loved the feeling of competing in front of tens of thousands of fans. In addition to the many fans at the NHRA event, the races at Tulsa Raceway Park saw the racers compete in front of almost 50,000 spectators, while the inaugural event held at the new Xtreme Raceway Park hosted 7,700 paid spectators.
Over 60 different Pro Mod teams competed at the 2019 events. At the St Louis event, we set the single event car count record with 38 competitors showing up for a 16-car qualified field.
As the series grew and became known as a series that truly cares for the racers, opportunities began to open up to expand the series. One of those options became available in 2020 when the series added junior dragsters to the show. “Drag racing has always been a sport that can be enjoyed by the entire family of all ages, and we saw the opportunity to bring in the young racers and their families to compete at races right alongside their big car counterparts. The junior drivers and families are a great addition and we truly enjoy having them as a part of the series”, states Event Director Ellen Eschenbacher.
In mid-2020, after a race that was run in conjunction with the NHRA Lucas Oil Top Alcohol classes, another opportunity presented itself to the series when Jim and Annie Whiteley of J&A Service approached Keith about adding a Top Alcohol Funny car class to the series. In no time at all a deal was struck and Top Alcohol Funny Car was added to the Mid-West Pro Mod Series.
With these two class additions it became apparent that the series, which was originally founded to provide a place for Pro Mod racers to race, had outgrown the Mid-West Pro Mod name. “The series was no longer synonymous with just Pro Mods, so a decision was made to change the name to something that would better reflect the variety of classes we have involved in the series, and the series was re-branded as the Mid-West Drag Racing Series”, states series founder Keith Haney.
Our business model is very lean and mean. We don’t want a lot of overhead, but we do want to make it one of the top organizations in drag racing. The MWDRS team consists of Jimmy Boles as Race Director, Lonnie Grim as Technical Consultant, Ellen Eschenbacher as the Event Director, and Keith Haney as Owner/Director of Marketing and Sales.
In addition to providing a variety of entries in six different classes from Pro Mods to Junior Dragsters, the Mid-West Drag Racing Series brings to each host track its own tech inspector, a professional live feed operation and the formidable reach and frequency of a sophisticated online marketing presence.
In late 2022, the Series began work with FloSports to broadcast the conclusion of the series’ events. Over the winter of 2022-2023, a partnership formed with FloSports/FloRacing to bring the production entirely in-house to broadcast through the Flo platform to millions of viewers world-wide. MWDRS Production Staff is led by Daniel Green, our announcer Luke Clevenger, Michael Narx, as well as a support staff of several additional people. This all allows us to interact with racers in the pits, top end, starting line, etc to bring a tremendous amount of additional coverage to the fans.
MWDRS had a robust social media strategy, resulting in 2023 social interaction on Facebook with 2.6 million views, 171 hours live, 119K likes, 101K comments and 28K shares. The MWDRS website had 21,000 unique visits per month during the year.
FloRacing coverage had 33k unique viewers with 812k minutes watched in 2023.
We ran a total of 8 events in 2023: two at Tulsa Raceway Park, two at Xtreme Raceway Park, one at Thunder Valley in Noble, OK, one at US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, MI, and two at World Wide Technology Raceway in St Louis.
During 2023, our regular season races brought us to tracks running with already-established races running Nitro and Bracket Racing, Grassroots local classes, Super Pro, Bikes, to Fuel Motorcycles and Jet Cars.
For the 2024 season, a large focus was placed on the FloRacing Live Stream production, providing the families at home an exceptional experience to watch their favorite racer live! The production expanded to include a drone operator and more cameras. Coverage came from all angles, with pre-recorded interviews and videos being played during down time. An emphasis was placed on posting content between races with articles of Points Races, Car and Driver updates and news from the upcoming tracks being made across social and the website throughout the year.
We ran a total of 7 events in 2024: Two events hosted at Tulsa Raceway Park (Throwdown in T-Town), Two events at Flying H Drag Strip in Odessa, MO (The Fall Smackdown being the Largest Pro Mod Payout in History), One event at World Wide Technology Raceway in St Louis, One event at US 131 in Martin, MI and One event at Pine Valley Raceway in Lufkin, TX
MWDRS and Flying H Drag Strip hosted the Fall Smack Down 2024, the brainchild of Keith Haney and Scott Higgs. This event would be the Largest Payout in Pro Mod Class history! With more than $266,000 on the line, the best of the best came to Kansas City, MO to compete against 40+ Pro Mods, with huge car counts for Funny Car, Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Pro 4.20 and Junior Classes. While the event was rained out, the lead up on social was incredible, with more than 300 unique pieces of content posted across FB, IG, YT and the website.