Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/116528
Crazy Woman Driver By Kay Bell Digitally savvy drivers key to NASCAR success CHANGING LANES No joke, NASCAR. It's time to embrace 21st century communications and the drivers who know how to use them. Pictured here at Pocono, Joey Logano tweets to his Twitter followers. Photo courtesy of Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images for NASCAR. It's April, and if the men and women who run NASCAR aren't careful, the biggest April Fool's joke of all could be on them. Those of us who love motorsports aren't kidding when we say this: What America's most popular racing series needs is to enter the 21st century. Specifically, NASCAR needs to adjust its outreach to get and, more importantly, keep young eyes on its young guns. It has a perfect opportunity to do so right now with reigning Sprint Cup Champion Brad Keselowski. He's young (he just turned 29 in February), he's personable, he's genuine and more importantly, he knows how to speak to the youthful, 22 crazy woman driver 0413 cl.indd 1 technology-friendly fan base that NASCAR must attract to thrive. And yes, he does it largely through social media. NASCAR already owes Keselowski a big thank-you for single-handedly keeping the audience focused on the 2012 Daytona 500 when he tweeted from his car during the lengthy delay after Juan Pablo Montoya had that freak accident with a jet-dryer truck. No, all eyes didn't stay glued to TV sets during the dragged-out clean-up. But neither did hundreds of thousands of fans forget about the race while the cars were stopped. That was because @keselowski kept his Twitter followers both informed APRIL 2013 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM 3/7/13 8:59 AM