Before Brad Keselowski hoisted the the Sprint Cup trophy, before his now infamous boozy interview on SportsCenter, before he even got out of his car following the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he tweeted.

Keselowski (@keselowski) tweeted a photo showing the swarm of cameramen and race officials surrounding his car immediately after he won the Sprint Cup title.

"We did it!" Keselowski wrote.

It's been quite a busy year for Keselowski, both on and off the track. In addition to unseating five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, the 28-year-old Keselowski is being hailed as the face of NASCAR's future. It's not only Keselowski's free-wheeling and fun-loving style (see: SportsCenter interview) that has NASCAR hopeful, it's also Keselowski's Twitter acumen that is making the sport's fans optimistic.

In a day and age when social media and sports have become inseparable, NASCAR is well behind the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL. At the beginning of this week, NASCAR's twitter account was the only group not to have at least one million followers. It lagged behind the NHL by 600,000 followers.

Enter Keselowski, whose more than 330,000 followers make him one of the most marketable drivers in the sport. He understands the importance of Twitter and was one of the first drivers to embrace it.

"Social media is here to stay," Keselowski told ESPN's Page 2 in February.

Keselowski's Twitter account took off during the Daytona 500, when he tweeted a photo of an exploding jet dryer truck and chatted with fans during two-hour red flag. On that night alone, he gained about about 135,000 followers.

"Brad's tweeting at the Daytona 500 was really our first introduction to the magnitude of the social media phenomenon at the race track, especially how we saw it unfold that evening," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp told Page 2. "We encourage our drivers to participate in social media."

Keselowski's tweeting propensity has landed him in trouble, as when he was slapped with a $25,000 fine a few weeks ago for posting a tweet during a red-flag delay at Phoenix International Raceway. NASCAR said the tweet violated league policies, which say it's illegal for drivers to have cellphones in their vehicles.

Ironically, it's a tweet from inside Keselowski's car that has the NASCAR world abuzz again this week. His "We did it!" tweet has more than 2,000 retweets and offers fans a rare glimpse of the driver's perspective.

Hopefully he'll be able to avoid a fine.

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