Danica Patrick
Action Sports Photography
Social networking is like high school. The main aim is for each person to become popular by having more 'followers' (Twitter) and more 'likes' (Facebook). The exchanges are mostly trivial, chatty, nonsensical. Then there are reflections, rumors and controversial messages from time to time.
The racer twitter ranges from timely photos such as Keselowski tweeting at the Daytona 500, providing close up images of Montoya's wreckage to random chit chat such as Danica Patrick telling her fans, "my dream has come true - the sequel to Anchorman is going to be made! Good odens raven!!!!!"
In this high school environment, who is leading? Who is lagging? Who is the most active? Least active? In order to find out, I tallied the twitter statistics of the Sprint Cup drivers (as of March 29, 2012). Here are some conclusions:
1. Homecoming Queen It's Danica Patrick with 572,052 followers. She has more twitter followers than any other racer in Sprint Cup.
2. Leading Man Juan Pablo, please stand up and take a bow. He has 510,049 followers. That's twice as high as the next person, Brad Keselowski, who has 257,006 followers.
3. Most Active Kenny Wallace has been busy tweeting with 23,685 tweets in all. No one comes close. Kyle Busch is the next active with 13,375.
4. Least Active Dale Earnhardt Jr., the perennial most popular driver, is also the least active tweeter. He has never tweeted. He does have a very strong following on Facebook with 1,318,496 fans. As a point of comparison, Danica Patrick and Juan Pablo Montoya have 116,163 and 86,648 Facebook fans respectively. Tony Stewart is also inactive with only one tweet that drives the fans to his main web page.
5. Least Followed Casey Mears. But he hardly tweets -- all together 5 times overall.
6. Most Following Joe Nemechek. He follows 13,465 tweeters, which is about as many as his followers.
The table below has the drivers, @ID and tweeting statistics.
Driver | Twitter @ ID | Follower | Following | # of Tweets | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Danica Patrick | '@danicapatrick | 572,052 | 92 | 1,422 | |
Juan Pablo Montoya | '@jpmontoya | 510,049 | 60 | 4,452 | |
Brad Keselowski | '@keselowski | 257,006 | 84 | 6,091 | |
Jimmie Johnson | '@jimmiejohnson | 201,027 | 134 | 4,593 | |
Kevin Harvick | '@kevinharvick | 188,937 | 94 | 5,797 | |
Jeff Gordon | '@jeffgordon | 186,359 | 111 | 9,558 | |
Kasey Kahne | '@kaseykahne | 164,237 | 96 | 2,395 | |
Kyle Busch | '@kylebusch | 157,947 | 58 | 4,897 | |
Michael Waltrip | '@mw55 | 150,261 | 194 | 13,375 | |
Denny Hamlin | '@dennyhamlin | 133,891 | 161 | 1,894 | |
Trevor Bayne | '@trevorbayne | 118,438 | 85 | 997 | |
Dale Earnhardt Jr. | '@dalejr | 111,655 | 0 | 0 | |
Kenny Wallace | '@kenny_wallace | 95,902 | 182 | 23,685 | |
Elliott Sadler | '@elliott_sadler | 91,918 | 187 | 4,566 | |
Matt Kenseth | '@mattkenseth | 90,814 | 49 | 1,358 | |
Jamie McMurray | '@jamiemcmurray | 88,104 | 33 | 765 | |
Tony Stewart | '@tonystewart | 87,795 | 0 | 1 | |
Ryan Newman | '@ryannewman39 | 86,457 | 148 | 3,253 | |
Martin Truex Jr. | '@martintruexjr56 | 70,164 | 48 | 1,261 | |
Greg Biffle | '@gregbiffle | 67,771 | 37 | 950 | |
Joey Logano | '@jlogano | 67,437 | 136 | 1,631 | |
Mark Martin | '@55markmartin | 63,232 | 90 | 1,258 | |
Bobby Labonte | '@bobby_labonte | 58,544 | 107 | 2,221 | |
A J Allmendinger | '@ajdinger | 54,802 | 2 | 7,203 | |
Brian Vickers | '@brianlvickers | 52,196 | 155 | 2,555 | |
Jeff Burton | '@jeffburton | 49,467 | 172 | 9,239 | |
Robby Gordon | '@robbygordon | 43,060 | 377 | 2,263 | |
David Ragan | '@david_ragan | 40,479 | 95 | 976 | |
Regan Smith | '@regan_smith_ | 39,239 | 82 | 2,121 | |
Austin Dillon | '@austindillon | 39,066 | 540 | 3,539 | |
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | '@stenhousejr | 33,640 | 72 | 2,772 | |
Carl Edwards | '@carl_edwards_ | 32,131 | 0 | 1,131 | |
Marcos Ambrose | '@marcosambrose | 27,522 | 109 | 4,589 | |
Aric Almirola | '@aric_almirola | 26,043 | 49 | 2,160 | |
David Reutimann | '@davidreutimann | 23,603 | 18 | 556 | |
Michael McDowell | '@mc_driver | 20,817 | 201 | 3,697 | |
Landon Cassill | '@landoncassill | 19,770 | 151 | 2,466 | |
J.J. Yeley | '@jjyeley1 | 15,010 | 99 | 2,844 | |
Brendan Gaughan | '@brendan62 | 14,225 | 88 | 5,350 | |
Joe Nemechek | '@frontrowjoe87 | 13,362 | 13,465 | 981 | |
Ken Schrader | '@kenschrader | 13,128 | 12 | 697 | |
Josh Wise | '@joshwise | 8,069 | 83 | 1,013 | |
Mike Bliss | '@mikebliss36 | 3,847 | 52 | 41 | |
Casey Mears | '@caseymears13 | 691 | 6 | 5 |
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