My New Twitter Friend, Mario Andretti

Posted by Motorista on September 4, 2014 in Best Things Ever, Motorsports, News | 1 Comment

Today dawned like any other day – other than the fact that it is my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. That is a story in itself! Happy anniversary, MotoMom and MotoDad!

Anyway, back to my normal day. I refuse to watch TV and typically get my news through Twitter, so I scan my Twitter timeline in the morning, kind of like the newspaper. Today I noticed all these awesome photos of Mario Andretti at the Monza track (in Italy) handing out customized cowboy hats to all the Formula 1 drivers. (Formula 1 is racing at Monza this Sunday.)

To put that in context, Mario Andretti is the “ambassador” for Circuit of the Americas, my beloved local racetrack and he was handing out the cowboy hats as a brilliant little promotional ploy for the Formula 1 race coming to Austin in about six weeks.

I found all of this thoroughly delightful. So I tweeted:

AND MARIO ANDRETTI TWEETED:

PLONK.

(That’s me being overcome with surprise and delight and ridiculous happiness.)

I know it’s a silly little thing, but a guy like Mario Andretti doesn’t need to be responding on Twitter to little ol’ race fans like me. That is beyond cool.

Now, after my initial tweet, but before his response, I had tweeted:

I was only joking and, heck, I’ll buy my own hat. But man would I like to shake Mario Andretti’s hand at COTA this fall! Besides being a racing legend, the COTA Sheriff is A-OK in my book!