Brad Keselowski will not be penalized for posting to his Twitter feed from behind the wheel of his racecar during a red-flag period of Monday's Daytona 500.
The Penske driver tweeted a picture and the word "Fire" while still sitting on his car right after the race was halted, following Juan Pablo Montoya's crash with a jet-dryer, 40 laps from the scheduled end of the event.
He sent further tweets after that in response to some of his followers and was even spotted on the TV broadcast while using his phone, once drivers were allowed out of their cars during the red-flag interruption, which took more than two hours.
Keselowski raced the Daytona 500 with his phone in his pocket, according to his own tweets from Monday. Other drivers had tweeted from their cars before, during testing and practice but never before during a race.
NASCAR said in a statement that Keselowski didn't violate any rules by his twitter use and is allowed to continue to do so, probably encouraging other drivers to do the same.
"NASCAR will not penalize Brad Keselowski for his use of Twitter during last night's Daytona 500," NASCAR said in a statement. "Nothing we've seen from Brad violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races. As such, he won't be penalized.
"We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others."
Keselowski claims he gained around 130,000 followers to his twitter account thanks to Monday's Daytona 500.