Austin Wayne Self, NASCAR’s Most Popular Teenage Driver, last night exceeded the 100,000 fan threshold on Facebook. As of this writing he has 100,237 fans following him on his Facebook fan page. If you compare his fan count to other NASCAR driver, that ranks him as #9 in terms of the size of Facebook fan following, between Sprint Cup Driver Juan Pablo Montoya at 97,728 and Kyle Busch at 116, 882.
“Hey, this is one is not about me, but about the fans,” says Austin. “I want to thank all you guys for your continued support. For sure, without you guys we couldn’t be racing NASCAR at this level. I am grateful to each and every one of you.”
“I think it’s really cool that the majority of Austin’s fans are between 12 and 17 years old and are primarily teenagers – just like him,” says Gregory Taylor, Austin’s longtime friend and Social Media Manager. “He has a very loyal following, as you can see by the reach of most of his posts. And it is split pretty evenly between boys and girls. But the 18-25 year old demographic has been increasing lately as well as his Hispanic following.”
“We launched Austin’s Facebook page last year as kids were moving to that platform from MySpace,” says Austin’s big sister, Michail Self. “It’s been cool to watch and it’s pretty impressive when you consider the level of engagement he gets. A few of his posts get a little heated like the one last week about the San Antonio race, but most of the time it is just kids having fun, and fans following his races. Go Frogs” [Texas Christian University].
“Greg, Michail and Steven have been a tremendous support team for Austin and his Social Media efforts. These kids are all full-time college students with part-time jobs. So for them to put aside the time to give this level of support is nothing less than extraordinary and says a lot about their work ethic,” says Tim Self, Austin’s dad and President of AM Racing. “But before anyone gets any ideas [about hiring them], they are all spoken for after graduation.”
In 2013 Austin will driving the 22 Dodge for Cunningham Motorsports, the Driver Development Team for Penske Racing. His first two races of the 2013 Season will be on the Daytona Short Track during NASCAR Speed Week. At least eight of his races next year will be broadcast live on the Speed Channel. He and his Facebook fans believe they will be a quarter million strong by the end of next season.
Austin’s next NASCAR Race is this weekend at Houston Motorsports Park. He will be driving the #15 Pro Modified of Raymond De La Houssay Sponsored by Sport Clips and Big Red. He says they have some cool giveaways for the fans as their way of celebrating the 100,000.