DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. (AP) - A bizarre delay in the Daytona 500 produced another unique moment in NASCAR: Driver Brad Keselowski posted messages on his Twitter account while he waited in his car for the race to resume.
Then he got caught in a late-race crash _ and tweeted again about a minute after the accident.
“Nothing we could do there,” he posted. “Never saw the wreck till we were windshield deep.”
Keselowski tripled his number of followers in the process, going from approximately 65,000 before the race to nearly 200,000 as the race got ready to resume after a delay of slightly more than two hours.
“Time to get back racing, thank you for following!,” Keselowski wrote.
Driver Juan Pablo Montoya’s collision with a large jet dryer vehicle touched off a huge fireball, bringing the race to a screeching halt. Montoya and the driver of the truck were OK.
NASCAR officials had the rest of the drivers stop their cars, and Keselowski took advantage of the break to post photos and answer questions from fans on his Twitter account, (at)keselowski. He apparently carries his mobile phone with him in his race car.
Asked by a fan whether other drivers were tweeting, Keselowski said no.
“They all think I’m crazy,” he wrote.
Keselowski answered other questions, including how low his phone’s battery was running (28 percent).
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