March 12, 2012
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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Brad Keselowski made headlines at Daytona a few weeks ago when he pulled out his phone and started tweeting from the backstretch while the race was under a red flag because of Juan Montoya's incident with the jet dryer that caused a huge fireball explosion.
He posted a picture that was picked up by the Fox broadcast and shown to viewers as the first picture tweeted during a NASCAR event. As a result, Keselowski gained more than 100,000 new Twitter followers during the two hour, five minute break.
During the stoppage, the drivers got out of their cars while they waited, but Keselowski was the only one with a phone. His reasons for keeping his phone in the car are quite simple.
"I was in California, driving for Dale Earnhardt Jr., and I had just gotten the ride to drive his No. 88 car (in NASCAR's Nationwide Series). We were running a race there, and I got in a really bad accident," Keselowski was quoted as saying in a NASCAR Wire Service report. "They airlifted me off, and, obviously, my family wasn't there . . . and they had no idea what status I was in, and, quite frankly, neither did I."
Last August while Keselowski was testing at Road Atlanta, he was involved in a serious crash that resulted in a broken ankle.
"I got into another serious accident, and again got airlifted off, and the difference was that I had my phone with me," Keselowski said. "And I had my phone because testing, you know, it gets really boring, monotonous. You sit in the car for an hour while they make a change.
"So I go through the incident and so forth, and they put me on a helicopter and all that same stuff. I have my phone with me, so I just send a message to my mom like, 'Hey, just want you to know that you're going to read this in the news, but I think I'm OK.' So that really kind of put the fire out before it really got started, and I think she really appreciated that."
When the red flag came out at Daytona, Keselowski had his phone with him and began tweeting, causing quite a stir. The influx of attention he garnered on Twitter was great for NASCAR and likely brought in more viewers to the telecast.
NASCAR currently has no plans to keep drivers from having their phones in the car. Yet, Kevin Harvick intends to do everything he can to force NASCAR to ban phones.
"Well, to be honest with you I had no idea that was something that would even remotely come into play as far as keeping your phone in your car during a race. But I guess if you’re going to keep up with that side of it, you’re going to have to," Harvick was quoted as saying at a press conference at Phoenix. "I’m going to look for every app I can for mile-per-hour, GPS mapping, and anything I can find to put in my car. I’m looking for it because I’m looking to outlaw this rule as fast as I can because I don’t want to have to keep up with it."
Harvick may be fighting a loosing battle.
Other than for tweeting, Keselowski has a legitimate reason for keeping his phone with him. It allows him to notify his family of his status when he is involved in an incident. There's no way NASCAR should keep drivers from having that option.
And when one considers the potential of the exposure that NASCAR can gain from drivers being connected to fans during a race, it's not likely that phones will be banned anytime soon.
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