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Haney to travel with son for baseball

Keith Haney will be racing his Lucas Oil/RacingJunk.com Pro Nitrous Chevrolet in the PDRA North-South Shootout this weekend at Maryland International Raceway, but part of his focus will be away from his Keith Haney Racing team.

Haney's son, Logan, will be participating in an 8-and-under World Series baseball game back home in Oklahoma. Haney is an assistant coach for Logan's Oklahoma Chiefs, and it pains him not to watch his son play.

"I'll be antsy all weekend," Haney said. "I'll be on pins and needles worrying about what those boys are doing, and Logan will be on pins and needles seeing what I'm doing. It's going to be exciting. Hopefully we can both bring home a victory."

Haney was able to attend opening ceremonies for the World Series on Wednesday before departing for Maryland. Logan's team made the state championship game while Haney was racing in Martin, Mich., three weeks ago.

"I was in Martin for the state championship, and I'm going to be in Maryland when my boys play in the World Series," Haney said. "We've both got the same common goal: I need to win a race and his team to win the World Series. Hopefully we both do it."

Haney actually made it home in time to watch Logan's state-title game after trouble in qualifying in Martin. The engine in Haney's Camaro was damaged after he mistakenly left in 2d gear following a long, weird staging process.

Haney ended up on a single run, but the Christmas Tree needed to be manually tripped in the other lane -- after Haney sat in the staging beam for several seconds. Still, despite hurting the engine, Haney left with a .0002-second reaction time.

"Normally, that doesn't happen," Haney said. "But we ended up hurting the motor, and we didn't have a spare set of heads. The motor is brand-new, so it's not like they have a whole bunch of spares yet."

So Haney, despite remaining qualified No. 15 out of 26 cars with a pass of 3.817 seconds at 195.48 mph, headed home before eliminations.

"Just in time to make it to my son's state championship game," Haney said. "I guess everything happens for a reason."

The Reher-Morrison Racing Engines motor has been fixed, and Haney is aiming high in Maryland. With Brandon Switzer tuning the engine and Brandon Pesz tuning the chassis, Haney has all he needs to run well.

"Larry Jeffers built me one bad-ass race car," Haney said. "Now I've got the power underneath the hood to be No. 1 anywhere I go. No more pretending: I'm a contender."

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