CUP: To Tweet Or Not To Tweet?

Published February 20, 2010

| Speedtv

The social networking revolution has reached NASCAR in a big way. MySpace, Facebook and SPEEDtv.com's own My.Speedtv.com are ways for NASCAR fans to connect and communicate with each other.

And then there's the Twitter.com phenomenon. As the whole word knows by now, Twitter.com allows users to post brief online updates of what they are doing at any given time.

If you use Twitter and follow the NASCAR community closely, among the things you would have learned in the past few days are:

• Hotel heiress Nicky Hilton is heading to Charlotte for Saturday night's grand opening of Denny Hamlin's new nightclub, “Butter.”

• SPEED personality and NASCAR Nationwide Series racer Kenny Wallace was offering primary sponsorship on both quarterpanels of his car at California Speedway for $7,200. He got it from promotional company zimmzang.com, who saw he's Tweet and ponied up for the weekend.

• Kyle Busch, fiancee Sam Sarcinella and best friends Scott and Amanda Speed went to see “Shutter Island” Friday night.

• Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray and his wife Christy were going out for Mexican food Friday night.

• Juan Pablo Montoya thought it was “freakin' cold” in the infield at Auto Club Speedway.

• Hamlin gives away race tickets every weekend through trivia questions on Twitter.

In addition, NASCAR disseminates information regularly on Twitter, as do many of the race teams and the media who follow the sport. (In the interest of full disclosure, my Twitter address is Twitter.com/tomjensen100).

NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France even showed up at a “Tweet Up,” a gathering of Twitter users, journalists and racers last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Whether one finds the above to be fascinating or foolhardy depends on point of view. And there are as many differences of opinion in the NASCAR community about the value of Twitter.

McMurray, Montoya, Hamlin, Michael Waltrip and Kenny Wallace are among the heavy users of Twitter. For a variety of reasons, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and others shy away from it. All of which makes for an interesting divergence of opinions in the NASCAR garage.

“Twitter has been really good for me,” said McMurray. “I've posted on there. I've tried really hard to use that so that I can share my Daytona 500 win with everyone. And whether it's media, to let them know what I'm doing, or my family, or just fans. It's just a great way for people to follow you. … It's amazing the amount of people that are following me on that and I don't get to read everything because I'm fortunate enough I've got enough followers now that when they send replies, you can't read them all. I just randomly scroll through my phone and I love reading how happy all the fans are that are following me on that. I am like a little Twitter geek right now. I really can't get enough of it."

“It’s neat to be able to interact with the fans,” said Martin Truex Jr. “I don’t think most sports figures would be saying hi to them or talking to their fans. For the most part, NASCAR drivers are down to earth, normal every day guys that came up racing on short tracks and race cars. We’re really no different than anyone else. I didn’t grow up practicing racing to be the best-ever, going to the Olympics or weird things like that. I did what I love to do. I worked on clam boats, I raced cars because I love it. It wasn’t like my dad was famous. I’m just an everyday guy that got to drive cars and I think that’s the difference between most of us in here. That’s part of the reason why we enjoy the fans and they enjoy us so much.”

On the other hand, there are plenty of drivers who shy away from Twitter.

“I actually have enough productive stuff to do with my life other than sit there and tell everybody what I’m doing every minute of every day,” said two-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart. “I really don’t mess with it. I’ve heard about it, I’ve heard a lot about it, but don’t know anything about it.”

Mike Davis, Earnhardt's communications manager at JR Motorsports, keeps fans abreast of the activities of NASCAR's most popular driver. As for Earnhardt himself, he stays away, for understandable reasons.

“I just know when you start something and create something like that, people expect it. If you guys ever got tired of doing it, you could just turn around and shut it off,” Earnhardt told reporters Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “If I was to handle a situation like that, it would just piss a lot of people off. If it was Jeff (Gluck, journalist) wanted to shut his Twitter account down, some people would be upset, but it is his prerogative. But if I start something like that, it just steam rolls and it is out of my control. I just don’t think it is productive to have a personal social networking account for me.”

Earnhardt said he has alternatives to communicate with his millions of fans.

“I like using those with our partners, whether it be our foundation or like the live chat with AMP was a blast the other day,” he said. “I really anticipate it being as popular as it was with the fans, they really enjoyed that so I need to look in that direction to do that more. I had Facebook and MySpace and all that stuff way back in the day and I just get burned out feeling that responsibility to keep it updated.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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