Fan Civility

by Tammy

A confession: I haven't been watching much racing the last couple months. I follow it, and I know what's happening, but I haven't been sitting in front of the television for hours every weekend watching each lap turned.

But while I'm writing, I've got live timing and scoring rolling on my screen. But more enlightening that even the live feed from the track is following races on Twitter (or TweetDeck, in my case).

Social media has affected every aspect of our lives, right? So maybe it's not so strange to say that in the last decade it's completely changed how we watch races—how we experience them, whether we're at the track or not. But it's still kind of amazing. I was following the NASCAR race on Sunday and within two minutes of Kyle Busch's brush with the wall, there was a video snippet posted that I could watch of the incident. And plenty of commentary.

Now, the news and facts are useful, and by that, I'm referring to the updates posted by the racing journalists I follow. For the most part, I'm also highly entertained by the random fan comments: the endless Junior or Danica supporting or bashing, and the snarky comments about any bump, rub, or crash.

What amazes me, however, is the depth of emotion. I mean, I dislike Kyle Busch intensely and like Tony Stewart a lot. But am I going to get personally offensive to someone who disagrees with me? Not likely. But plenty of you people out there do—and it's not just on Twitter. Read any online article and check out the comments, you'll see what I mean.

What started me thinking about this today was someone on Twitter slamming Nicole Briscoe (who's co-hosted motorsport-report shows for some years and is married to a top pro driver) for expressing an opinion that contradicted something an actual racecar driver thought, complete with disparaging remarks about "pageant queens" (she was one) and calling her "IGNORANT" (caps theirs). Seriously? Where'd the civility go?

I get that we all have a microphone now, and I do enjoy the conversation that is social media ... I've gotten to meet (virtually and in person) a lot of great people because of those conversations. But I suppose there's also the looming possibility that someone's going to call me ignorant or an asshole because I'm expressing an opinion that's different than theirs.

All I can say is, like and hate who you choose in the racing world. I won't judge you, if you don't judge me.

Wrap Them Up in Cotton Wool

by Tammy

Watching Twitter during a race has to be almost as fascinating as watching the race itself—especially if it's NASCAR, and especially when there are wrecks.

NASCAR was at Daytona last weekend, which means restrictor plate racing (which I still don't understand the fun of) and the possibility of "the big one" because the cars are all bunched together with only parking-lot spacing between them as they do something like 200 m.p.h. Saturday night for the Cup race, there were a number of "big ones"—including two on the last lap alone.

But it was the big one that collected (and bounced and shredded) Denny Hamlin's car that was probably the most scary, given that he's wrecked badly already this season and hurt his back. (He seems to be fine; certainly he got out of the car and walked to the ambulance on his own steam.)

Two points about that accident stood out to me:

1. It reminded me a lot of the kind of impact Dale Earnhardt had in his fatal wreck just a few hundred yards away, but with a dramatically different result. (Watch Hamlin's crash Saturday, and Earnhardt's crash in 2001.)
2. Twitter lit up with the information that where Hamlin crashed, there were no SAFER barriers installed. Lots of people were outraged over that fact, and I gather that there were probability studies done about where they were most needed at Daytona International Speedway, and not every location around the 2.5 mile oval made the cut.

Here's my basic question: how much should tracks and series and organizing bodies try to protect drivers from impact?

That's going to sound harsh, and of course I don't want anyone seriously hurt. But should Daytona have SAFER barriers on both sides of the track, all the way around? Should Le Mans tear out trees along Tetre Rouge and put in more spongy barriers so that someone like Allan Simonsen isn't killed running into it? Should IndyCar or F1 cars have kevlar bubbles over the cockpit so no one's hurt like Felipe Massa or killed like Dan Wheldon? At what level of racing should the safest-possible seat (or belts or helmet or whatever) be mandated, so more aren't killed as Jason Leffler was? 

Do we wrap them up in cotton wool, these racing drivers? Where do we draw the line of trying to make an inherently dangerous activity safe? I don't know the answer....

What Are You Thankful For About Racing?

by Tammy

The racing season is now over, and we're staring down the end of the year, as well. With Thanksgiving and all, I spent some time being thankful last week about my life in general. But I wanted to cover a few items I'm thankful for with regard to the world of racing.

Corvette Racing 2012 ALMS Champs: I'm pretty dang happy they pulled it out to win the season championship, their first in the (combined) GT class.

Last-race championship decisions: An awful lot of season championship battles came down to the last race of the year: F1, IndyCar, several of the ALMS classes. Well done with all of the battles, guys.

Pressdog, the blogger: A racing friend introduced me to the Pressdog's blog, and I have to say, he brightens my week. It's my dream to be a Woman of Pressdog (R).

The ALMS/Grand-Am merger: I still have some concerns about how this will turn out (specifically that it won't be a case of losing the good in favor of the ponderous), but I'm hopeful. If nothing else, I think change is good to shake things up. And if nothing else, it makes it really easy for me to transition Kate from the ALMS to the 24 Hours of Daytona for my third book in the series....

TrueCar Racing sponsoring a bunch of female racers: Yeah, I'm letting my feminism out. But I think it's fantastic that a company stepped up and sponsored six female racers across a variety of disciplines. It was neat to follow their tweets as they traveled en masse to races to support each other. I hope TrueCar keeps it up.

Twitter and passionate racing fans and friends everywhere: It's amazing how we can stay involved in the racing world these days from our desk or chair at home. Thank you Twitter, and thank you, committed Tweeters. I don't always agree with what everyone's saying, but I love the virtual community we've got. And what's even better is making true friends in that virtual world. (Find me there.)

So what about the rest of you? What were you especially thankful for in the 2012 racing season?

Petit Le Mans Tomorrow!

by Tammy

Simon is away being celebrated this weekend, but I'll be at home, sitting in front of the computer. Because Saturday is Petit Le Mans! I attended this race the last two years and have written about it in my next book, so it's a race I really enjoy.

Check out how cool this race poster is. That's the Delta Wing there on the right, and ahead, the 2012 GT champion Corvette! All of them sweeping down the hill at Road Atlanta into Turn 12. Great spot!

Will you be watching with me? Coverage starts at 8:30 a.m. Pacific/11:30 a.m. Eastern, on ESPN3.com. I'll also be posting a lot on Twitter: @tkaehler. Hope to see you around the mediaverse!

Tweeting Racing

by Tammy

Last Friday I posted on the Poisoned Pen Press blog (which I share with 27 other authors) about two amazing social media byproducts of the Daytona 500 last week. The first was the speed with which Internet memes (mostly jokes) were propagated through Facebook and Twitter. The second was the revelation of Brad Keselowski tweeting from his car (and standing on the track) during the two-hour red flag. I won't repeat that discussion here (read it, if you're interested), except to repost my favorite Facebook joke image. But I have a few more thoughts on the whole Twitter thing.

First interesting point: Keselowski had a really good reason for having his phone with him. He'd been in a couple big wrecks in the last year, and in the second one, he had his phone with him, so he could text his parents on the way to the hospital to tell them, "ignore that fiery wreck on the television, I'm OK" or similar. And since he had the phone with him in case of emergency, well, why not entertain himself with it during a two-hour stoppage.

Second interesting point: how everyone in the racing world is freaking out about him using Twitter. ("Freaking out" = making a big deal of.) Loads and loads of people in the racing world have Twitter feeds, everyone from teams to drivers to television announcers. Maybe there are fewer in NASCAR? I don't really know. I do know that a bunch of IndyCar drivers are really, really active on it. But however much it was being used before Keselowski's "tweet heard round the world," suddenly the NASCAR world has woken up to the power Twitter has to send out a message. There are 120,000 more Twitter accounts (meaning people) who will now see what Brad Keselowski has to say because he gained that many followers last Monday night ... scratch that. I just checked his follower number, and if I remember correctly, he's now got about 170,000 more followers than he had at 7 p.m. last Monday.

I expect to see drivers and teams being a lot more active on Twitter after this. Which leads me to...

Third interesting point: Kevin Harvick saying he was going to keep his phone with him and load up on apps that might help him race, all in order to get the carrying of a cell phone in the car outlawed. So he doesn't have to keep up.

Harvick, you're sounding grouchy. No one's saying you have to keep up. The kids are always going to be more on top of new technology ... live with it.

Are any of you on Twitter, and do you follow the racing world? Who do you like? And do you think it'll get more popular now?

P.S. Follow me if you're there, and I'll follow you back: @tkaehler