Race car driver Tweets to the world about fire drama on Daytona track
When a gigantic fireball following a crash stopped the legendary Daytona 500 race in the US, driver Brad Keselowski picked up up his cellphone in his halted car - and started tweeting pictures and comments.
Keselowski's first pic
Within an hour as he tweeted away, his followers had zoomed from 85,000 to 185,000 .
It happened after Keselowski’s fellow driver Juan Pablo Montoya crashed into a safety vehicle mid-race. The collision sparked a huge ball of fire but both vehicles’ drivers avoided serious injury. The race was halted.
From his spot in the racecar traffic jam, Mashable reported, Keselowski picked up his sent this tweet to around 85,000 followers:
@keselowski
Fire! My view pic.twitter.com/RWn3xMn6
More than an hour later, whe the race resumed. Keselowski’s followers stood at 185,000.
Keselowski’s initial tweet "set off a hysteria in the sports Twittersphere," Mashable reported, and brought these exchanges between him and his fans:
@keselowski how did you get this pic?”
@keselowski
I took it... @ANikonNerd
@keselowski
No worries We stopped
@LisShoe: @keselowski please! Don't tweet and drive! Lol ;) ;)”
@keselowski
Maybe ;)
@beachtowel43: @keselowski do you seriously have your phone in the car? Hahaha”
As the delay stretched to an hour Keselowski kept up a steady stream of tweets updating and reacting to the accident and to-be-continued race.
Earlier, Keselowski had retweeted fan Jessica Lynn Burkett, who posted:
Jessica Lynn Burkett@JessicaLynn0627
So we have a Monday night #NascarPrimetime #daytona500 race, jet dryer blow up and @keselowski tweeting from his car.... #AWESOMENESS!!!
Later Keselowski got into a crash of his own after the race resumed. Said Mashable, "No word whether it was a case of tweeting-while-driving, but he did post another message to his account minutes after his crash."