The first tweet went out at 10 am. Anyone on track property at Gainesville Dragway who wanted to meet Ashley Force Hood should show up at the hauler in one hour. The second tweet went out one hour later. Through a sea of fans waiting to get a glimpse or an autograph from Ashley Force Hood, on cue Melissa Waterman's hand shot high in the air. If only the others in the crowd had been “tweeters”.
On her first trip to Gainesville Dragway, the Rhode Island native, scored one of the biggest coup's of the weekend – a personal visit with Ashley.
“That was great,” Waterman said, a huge smile on her face, when asked about her meeting. “We've got to see them in the pits before, at other races but you don't get to actually go up and meet them. You always have other people in the way and you're trying to fight other people to get there.”
In truth, Waterman had no idea that by following the “tweet” she was going to get to meet a Force. When Elon Werner, Force's publicist, waved her back behind the barricade there was a moment of nervousness.
“Yea, I was a little nervous,” Waterman admitted. “I had no idea I was going to actually get to meet Ashley.”
Waterman signed up for Twitter for one reason, “Because of John Force Racing, the website. You always know what's going on. Yesterday (Friday), I was updated every time a round was through on where the Force teams stood.”
Attracting just one single fan from his tweet was not a disappointment for Werner. He knows it all starts with one voice and Melissa Waterman is going to be one strong voice spreading the word.
Twitter, a social networking tool, could fast become a very important tool in the public relations arena, not just in drag racing, but in any function where people want to know what's happening now, right now, not later.
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