The Official Blog of the IZOD IndyCar Series

We all know how much fun can be had on (and obviously off) Twitter, but our IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights, Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear and the Cooper Tires USF2000 powered by Mazda drivers always provide us with some entertaining content via the social network.

But can you guess who said what? (Note: On occasion some of the tweets listed will come from prominent voices within the IndyCar community as well.)

Let’s see if you can pair the driver up to tweets listed.

(Answers will be revealed next week with the next installation of Guess That Tweeter)

1. Just realized that despite seeing every parody of it, I don’t think I’ve seen the actual ‘Call Me Maybe’ music video. And I’m ok with this.

2. Gotta love the London Underground !! #sweatbox #whofarted @tagliani

3. #fact Slow motion shots of 100m sprinters are funny.

4. #YouGetMajorPointsIf You’re French Canadian or can just speak French in general! I miss you GP3R!

5. Gf’s O2 sensor tanking just became an awesome excuse to go get new tools. Unfortunately I didn’t require a blowtorch. #Ireallywantablowtorch

6. My favorite time of the year!going to the indianapolis state fair tonight!with @rmiller @IndyCar!#thisshouldbeentairtaining.

7. Holy smoke these guys run so fast TV doesn’t make justice. Wow it is almost as impressive as @IndyCar going by at the @IMS from pit lane

8. Seeing the Dark Knight Rises for a second time. I sort of have a Batman problem… I will own a legit suit one day. #fact

9. Never leave your phone unlocked with Stig around.

10. On my way to the Glen to try to win another one with Alex ! Peter called wednesday this time…

Post your guesses below.

Let’s consider this a first person, “Eye of the Intern” take of a race weekend in scenic Lexington, Ohio, home of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and well, not much else (besides rolling green hills, the occasional horse and buggy and lots of rain.)

In what I would like to refer to as a weekend summer camp in the heart of Ohio, I got the opportunity to showcase INDYCAR and the community that surrounds it to a few new INDYCAR fans. These three young men who traveled from near and far to take in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio were more familiar with that other league, NASCAR. The INDYCAR officials decided collectively that we wanted to invite some twitter-centric motorsport enthusiast out to a race weekend to experience some of the excitement and daily task that come along with being a part of this racing community. So here is a quick break down:

• Three guests (follow them on Twitter!) @Nascarcam, @TheCatchFence and @Stephen_Kelsey.
• Where: Three nights, two days in lovely Lexington, Ohio.
• What: tours, meet and greets, and meals with INDYCAR drivers, Race Director and (drum roll) CEO.
• Expected: Coverage via Twitter and other social networks on their experience in and around the INDYCAR Paddock’s, garages, media center, Race Control, Fan Village and other parts of the race weekend they experience. It was our desire to extend the line of communication between our fans on the internet, the ones in person at the track and those who are both!

So being the ‘I want to take the lead’ type of person that I am, I worked with others to plan, organize and schedule some activities for our guests to take part in. Here are a few of the opportunities our guests were able to take part in:

• Breakfast in the Paddock Club with CEO Randy Bernard, VP of Communications Amy Konrath, and myself.
• Tour of Race Control with Race Director Beaux Barfield. (Added bonus: Arie Luyendyk Sr. and Rick Mears happened to be in Race Control as well. INDYCAR Legends!)
• Tour of Mid-Ohio Media Tower and meet and greet with Public Relations Director for Mid-Ohio Jesse Ghiorzi (pronounced with a hard g-or-zee.)
• Access to an AJ Foyt Press Conference (announcing Chase Austin as a driver for the 2013 Indianapolis 500.)
• Meet and greet with TrueCar Racing’s Shea Holbrook, Katherine Legge and Shannon McIntosh.
• Tour, meet and greet with USF2000 Cape Motorsports driver Spencer Pigot.
• An additional meal and chat with Bernard.
• Garage and paddock tour with Pippa Mann.
• Access to the pits on race day.

Now after all of that, we were able to fully turn these NASCAR fans into adoring INDYCAR fans as well. The amount of positive feedback we received from the guests via Twitter (although cell reception was quite slow) the weekend they spent with us was top-notch and it has continued on since then.

Some examples:

In #midohio parking lot, as insanely loyal Jakesy Nation (@jakesynat19nprz) celebrates James Jakes’ b-day with James.twitpic.com/afhrw1

— nascarcasm (@nascarcasm) August 4, 2012

Immense thanks to @rbindycar, @peekashley and all the @indycar folks for a fantastic weekend at @followmidohio! #ThisIsMidOhio — nascarcasm (@nascarcasm) August 5, 2012

Hey @spencerpigot congrats on that win today! 5 in a row!! #dominance #USF2000

— The Catch Fence ™ (@TheCatchFence) August 4, 2012

I’m going to say this, and I’m only going to say it once. Or I might say it 1000 times: @indycar is #AWESOME!!! #IndyCar — The Catch Fence ™ (@TheCatchFence) August 4, 2012

It was a positive and learning experience for me being able to take control and show our guests around this racing community we are all involved in and making it knowledgeable and enjoyable all at the same time. To be able to show the guests firsthand what not only the drivers have to do to prepare but other instrumental parts of this organization was a way to expand their expertise on motorsports and highlight what INDYCAR hopes to do differently and how we are hoping to take strides to connect more with our online following.

All in all, the experience of traveling with the Public Relations department and literally doing just that, relating with the public, will be one that won’t soon be forgot in my collection of INDYCAR memories.

Now, we just have to get these guys to change their twitter handles to something along the lines of @INDYCARCasm, or…ya know, something showcasing a love for the racing league with the best drivers in the world.

Twitter allows drivers to better interact with their fans and a way to share a small piece of themselves and their teams. When a driver tweets, it gives us all a closer look at their personality. Some drivers tweet about things that keep followers up-to-date on their racing life, some tweet about their personal lives, some tweet mobile pictures (remember planking??), but no matter their intentions, some drivers make us LOL every time they tweet.

Danica Patrick Tweeting Away!

We’ve pulled together some of the funniest Tweets from the IndyCar world and listed them below. Each Tweet shows a bit of the Tweeters personality. Gather all of your IndyCar knowledge and take a guess at who the Tweeter might have been.

Guess away! Get your friends to play, and see who can correctly guess which drivers are behind these tweets:

1. Last night, one of our crew guys pulled me aside & said, “Stop being an a**hole.” That’s all the motivation I needed.

2. Anything better than putting on boxers fresh out of the dryer? I think not. #lovethelittlethings

3. I am at bucksstar had to whisper 1 frappo no whipped cream to cashier make sure no one heard me.

4. “that’s the most passes 4 the lead that I can remember. Much better than just watching Dario go round & round.” SNAP

5. @dariofranchitti the pleasure was all mine! I was always told to be nice and polite to your elders!

6. For me boxing is the closest trainning for racing outside the race car…sometimes the punch feels like the wall.hehehe

7. Not entirely sure new yoga instructor tonight was overly impressed with a certain someone’s non existent levels of “bendyness”…!!!

8. My tomtom has @dariofranchitti voice…not sexy. Hahahaha

Hint: Not all of the Tweets are technically from drivers. Think of some of the most vocal INDYCAR tweeps out there and you might recognize 1 or 2 of their personalities as well. Leave a comment with your guesses below and we’ll keep you posted when the answers are revealed.  #goodluck

While I’m en route to a little relaxation at my parents’ lake abode to cool off for the weekend, things in Texas will just be heating up. I’ll be floating around the lake in the pontoon while final adjustments and preparations are being made on pit lane around the Texas Motor Speedway. By the time I’m back to shore, it’ll be just about time for the Firestone Twin 275s to start and my family and I will tune in just as we always have.

The television will be set to Versus and, because we will most likely be outside, our SiriusXM radio dock will be blaring the race broadcast on the deck. Home or the lake, indoors or outdoors, day or night,  if it’s race day you can be sure we’ll be listening to the race through some medium.

Everyone has their race day rituals or traditions. Whether you throw big parties, have small family get-togethers, or lounge on the couch in a t-shirt featuring your favorite driver, we love the way you tune into IndyCar. We’d love to hear more about your favorite ways to spend race day.

Brag about the way you celebrate by leaving a comment below.

• Throwing a party?
• Grilling out?
• Hanging out with your family?
• Not moving from the couch all day?
• IndyCar drinking games?

We want to know why your way is cooler than any other!

Earlier this week we rolled out 25 QR Codes around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as well as introduced a new version of the Verizon IndyCar Mobile Application. We’re thinking digitally, while we celebrate the Centennial running of the Indianapolis 500. History meets technology.

If you don’t have the app on your Verizon phone, check it out here (as well as for compatible devices).

If you’re at IMS for Carb day or through the weekend, you can access 25 of our QR Codes around the Pagoda, Yard of Bricks and Gasoline Alley. These codes will bring you closer to the racing action, drivers from the IZOD IndyCar Series and reveal some of the behind-the-scenes information of our Series. All you need is a Verizon phone with QR Code reading software and you’ll have instant access to exclusive videos – and even a chance to win a trip to the IndyCar World Championships in Las Vegas. Cool.

QR code Will

Both the app and QR Codes provide a closer connection to our sport and features content that highlights the diversity of IndyCar. We hope you enjoy and would love to hear what you think.

It’s an odd post title, but it’s a fitting one for a discussion on Twitter. Twitter has hit it’s stride this season with more and more teams, drivers, journalists and sponsors joining the online dialogue. The most pleasant surprise are the amount of driver’s genuinely using Twitter to reveal their personalities. A video interview in pit lane isn’t always the best way to know someone. 140 characters in a tweet on the other hand…

TK ready for Indy

Twitter is obviously on the rise. It’s a social tool that people are finally understanding and utilizing. IndyCar blogger, @pressdog wrote a four-part series earlier this year, illustrating it’s growing importance within the sport. Followers of @IndyCar have grown over 300% in just over a year. It’s become a more accepted method of communication and we use it to share race updates, official results, news stories, videos, Flickr images, blog posts and lots more.  There are now multiple voices around the INDYCAR experience. We are listening.

Yesterday, we interviewed James Hinchcliffe (video below). It got me thinking about driver’s that are web savvy. I remember watching Hinch last season and being impressed by his personal online strategy. His site, videos, and use of Twitter were exceptional. He was ahead of the game. And now, the game has caught up with him and embraced the web community. In my opinion, it’s the most important way we (and I mean ‘we’) can help grow the INDYCAR brand. We all have a voice to help grow this sport.

There have been lots of memorable Twitter moments recently. These are bringing the online world into the at-track world. They are bringing together the personalities of the sport into a new environment. They are giving our faithful, loyal fans new ways of connecting to the speed and racing action. Twitter is removing traditional walls. Some quick examples -

Tomas Scheckter’s blog post last December got some real chatter online and then on Twitter.

Most races are followed by some interesting driver banter – all before our Twitter eyes.

Today, Scott Dixon gave away a watch to one lucky fan. All of this was done through Twitter!

Tweet with drivers and you could win!

And a current contest from Ryan Briscoe: “Who wants to win a trip and be my guest at this years Indy500? Guess my qual speed to win! Go to www.ryanbriscoe.com for details”.

For fans, I can’t think of a better way to follow the sport or a favorite driver. You can tweet directly at them and there will be a lot of chatter this month of May. What are you waiting for?

So – we’ve created a full listing of IZOD IndyCar Series drivers on Twitter for you HERE.

Check them out, follow their tweets, join the conversation and as always, let us know what you think.

You can follow @IndyCar, here.

When you win an  IZOD IndyCar Series Contest, we dig deeper! Actually, we just request that the recipient take a photo with their new gear and send it to us- Nothing creepy, we just want to make sure our winners are happy. We also want to feature them on our website and Flickr account, because let’s face it- race fans are passionate people and we like to give appreciation when appreciation is due! Today we are featuring two of our contest winners, Courtney Braden and Rudi Womack:

Courtney Braden may not know this, but she was the first contest winner since we began “Contest Wednesdays” back in June.  She won a RT contest on Twitter (@IndyCarNation) by being the 50th person to retweet our message- pretty cool, so a big thanks to Courtney for being our guinea pig!

Courtney with her IZOD IndyCar Series Prizes

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Adrian's Compliation

Apologizes for the image size, it was this size or pixelated! Hopefully the designer’s comments will help with the formatting issue:

“Hi, I’m Adrian Larrondo, industrial design student in Argentina. My concept is inspired by the lines of the 50 aircraft and try to move them to the safety Selda Ustad provided.

This design is the first of three concepts that I developed for the category, all my work I found in my facebook and consult enthusiasts, from already thank you very much for the opportunity to show my designs and on this side of the world there are not many competitions on cars is my passion.”

Think you can come up with a design? We want your submissions!

{Admin Note} With all of the excitement——and questions around the Future IndyCar Concept Announcement. We at IndyCar.com thought we’d enlist our users to have fun with the open design concept that the 2012 IndyCar chassis will endorse.  For more information please visit the www.indycar.com/2012 page for interviews, car information and of course…the details on how you can design your own concept.

His website is personal, professional and entertaining. Of course it is, it’s Helio Castroneves. He tweets, twitpics, thanks his team and interacts with fans the web.

Twitter - @h3lio

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It’s hump day and another installment of Web Talk.

Rahal and his iPad

Today, we’re focusing on Graham Rahal, where we caught up with him at Mid-Ohio a few races ago. We got to know more about his technology interests, Twitter wars and upcoming changes to his website.

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