Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/116528
CHANGING LANES crazy Woman Driver 26 I also suspect it's a control issue. NASCAR has used Twitter during the races, but it works to control the flow of online exchanges, filtering out uncomplimentary yet valid tweets from fans. Sorry, guys, but that's antithetical to the medium, and it undercuts your credibility. To the delight of Keselowski's fans, both longstanding and those new ones from his Internet outreach, the new champ celebrated his winning moment by tweeting a photo from his car in Victory Lane. I'm pretty sure, per NASCAR rules, the cell phone he used to record his young career's ultimate racing moment was not already in his car, but handed to him after he arrived there. But the point is that Keselowski was still reaching out directly to his fans. So loosen up, NASCAR. You wanted the boys to have at it on the race track. And considering that the Sprint Cup drivers alone have millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook, that should include letting them be themselves via social media whenever the situation before, during and after a race allows it. If that means goofy photos and breezy comments at appropriate moments during competition, then so be it. Heck, I'm hoping one of Keselowski's crew members or some other social media-savvy NASCAR team member will provide us with Twitter feeds from pit road this season. That kind of real interaction is what NASCAR fans of all ages want. crazy woman driver 0413 cl.indd 3 LOOSE LUGNUTS Competing in love: Not to get all girlie, but I couldn't let the Danica Patrick-Ricky Stenhouse Jr. romance go unmentioned. There's obviously the matter of manufacturers. Patrick, 30, is in a Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas. Two-time Nationwide Series champion Stenhouse, 25, will pilot a Ford for Roush-Fenway Racing. Can a racetrack Capuletand-Montague relationship survive? Will vehicle secrets be spilled as part of pillow talk? And admit it, you too are wondering how the couple will handle head-to-head racing on NASCAR Sprint Cup tracks this year. That competition will be magnified because Patrick and Stenhouse started the 2013 season as the only contestants for Sprint Cup rookie of the year. Reducing rain delays: NASCAR can't control the weather, but it's doing the next best thing. This season the new Air Titan system should dry a rain-soaked track in considerably less time than the jet dryers that have been used in past years. Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Operations, said that Air Titan eventually can cut drying time up to 80 percent. Air Titan utilizes two sets of identical APRIL 2013 // WWW.CHANGINGLANESDIGITAL.COM 3/5/13 2:32 PM