NASCAR on Twitter: Insights From Tweets Can Assist In All Angles of Sports Handicapping

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NASCAR on Twitter

by Micah Roberts
Gaming Today - Las Vegas

One of the biggest social networking outlets out there is Twitter. At first, I was a bit dismissive about it. I was never into MySpace and use Facebook as means to keep in touch with relatives, but Twitter has now become much more than a place where you state what you’re doing.

I use it regularly to keep up-to-date with all things going on in the sports world, in particular, with NASCAR. There are over 45 drivers on Twitter that tweet regularly. While many of the tweets are comedic, there is also lots of insightful information that can help and assist with your weekly handicapping.

The drivers give up-to-date and honest information regarding their cars and teams after each practice. That type of information was never available in the past. Most of the time when handicapping a race, you look at straight numbers only, but when someone like Kasey Kahne tells you straight up before the race that his car is terrible and doesn’t know what to expect in the race, it’s much more telling than any kind of number on paper.

NASCAR is the largest group of any sport that regularly tweets, but the information gained for other sports is invaluable as well. Real time injury updates and other information that impact games hit Twitter first in many cases before the news even hits the wire. For people that regularly make wagers on all sports, that type of information is huge, especially before the news hits the Sports Books and a line is taken off the board.

On the lighter side, you can also get to know a NASCAR driver’s true personality by things they say. NASCAR driver Scott Speed is an absolute nut job; he and his wife Amanda tweet non-stop and it’s almost like a reality show with their banter.

You find things out that maybe you wouldn’t otherwise know, like when Speed tweeted Saturday regarding Danica Patrick after her qualifying run for the St. Petersburg IRL race. "She Qualified 21 out 24 cars, LOL," meaning laugh out loud.

Las Vegan Kyle Busch is a regular tweeter and is probably the most fan friendly with all his tweeps, meaning Twitter people following. He gets thousands of tweets a day and somehow manages to reply to most, something that most of the drivers don’t do.

There still are a few major drivers that don’t tweet like Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr, but they’ll likely come around. Stewart says he has better things to do than tell people he’s going to bed, but he’ll catch on soon like radio talk show host Jim Rome did.

Rome went on a half-hour comedic rampage about how stupid Twitter was a year ago. Just last month, Rome got an account and now has half of his nation following his tweets.

For sports purposes, Twitter is an absolute must follow just to get all the information. I use it religiously for that and also to send out my thoughts and articles to whoever wants to read them out there. You can follow me on Twitter at Micah Roberts7. You can follow GamingToday at GamingTodayNews.The

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is off week this weekend, and then onto Phoenix where the Childress cars look to be the ones to focus on.