A number of NHRA teams have active Twitter accounts (www.twitter.com) with thousands of followers and at the 13th annual O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals presented by Castrol they decided to ramp up the interaction on the wildly popular social media site. Throughout the two days of qualifying teams and drivers made updated also known as “Tweets” and they encouraged fans to join in the fun whether they were at Gateway International Raceway or not. All posts were tagged with #nhragir so they could be tracked on Twitter. At the end of the second day of qualifying David Barnes of Florissant, Missouri was at the race Twittering and he responded to the team Tweets which asked anyone on the property to pick up hero cards and meet at the NHRA Nitro Mall retail location following the second round of professional eliminations. A number of NHRA teams have active Twitter accounts (www.twitter.com) with thousands of followers and at the 13th annual O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals presented by Castrol they decided to ramp up the interaction on the wildly popular social media site. Throughout the two days of qualifying teams and drivers made updated also known as “Tweets” and they encouraged fans to join in the fun whether they were at Gateway International Raceway or not. All posts were tagged with #nhragir so they could be tracked on Twitter. At the end of the second day of qualifying David Barnes of Florissant, Missouri was at the race Twittering and he responded to the team Tweets which asked anyone on the property to pick up hero cards and meet at the NHRA Nitro Mall retail location following the second round of professional eliminations.

For his efforts Barnes won an autographed NHRA baseball cap that included the signatures of John Force, Ashley Force Hood, Robert Hight, Mike Neff, Brandon Bernstein, Matt Hagan, Cory McClenathan, Doug Kalitta, and Jeff Arend. When he was presented with his prize Barnes was pleasantly surprised.

“I’ve been on Twitter for three or four months. Right after I got on Twitter Gateway International Raceway sent out a Tweet with all the teams that were on Twitter so I started following most of them. Every time I get a chance during the race I’ll stop and do a quick Tweet. It makes you feel a little more involved with the teams.  I’m pretty involved now even when I am not at the track I Tweet a lot especially with a lot of the radio talk show hosts in the area that I also follow,” said Barnes, who is also known as @CallMeExtreme.

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