As the calendar year 2009 was winding down, CNN reported that the number one word used, texted, e-mailed or spoken during the past 12 months was the word "Twitter" or its popular derivative "Tweet."

At that time, I had no idea what they were talking about. I had heard of this new wave of communication, but had not experienced it yet.

A couple of weeks later, someone asked: "Do you Tweet?" I responded: "I try not to in public, but sometimes around friends." It got a huge laugh, but embarrassingly showed that instead of 2008 I was really 2000 and late.

The name itself was confusing. Seemed to me like a tenured manager of a pet store came up with it -- Tweeting is all you ever hear in PetSmart.

But what Twitter has become almost overnight is an instantaneous, infinite superhighway of information (some actually useful) designed to keep the followers engaged with their personal interests -- friends, family, athletes, politicians, celebrities, your child's teacher or the weather.

The best part about it -- you choose who you follow. And when you don't want to follow that person or group any longer, you simply hit "unfollow," like I did to Darrell Waltrip about two weeks ago (sorry, but I had read enough about Mutton).

There are celebrities like John Mayer, Lance Armstrong, Shaq and Chad Ocho Cinco who are amassing millions of followers. Tiger had quite the following at one time, but he had his phone taken from him.

In NASCAR, the leaders of the pack appear to be Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Juan Montoya and Michael Waltrip. Drivers now communicate directly with their fans to provide instant reaction to events both on and off the track. Scott Speed tweets pictures of his ping pong table; Montoya show us his remote controlled airplane; and Michael tweets pictures from the set of Fast Track to Fame and Showtime's Inside NASCAR. Elliott Sadler showed the world pictures of Wyatt soon after he was born. Priceless stuff, never before available at warp speed.

Media outlets are now even quoting Twitter sites when they need a reaction and writers are linking their stories on Twitter increasing the ever-important readership numbers.

As NASCAR fans become more familiar with this technology which allows them to befriend their favorites, the number of followers will continue to skyrocket. Twitter has joined the audio from driver-crew radio transmissions, the scoring monitor and weather radar as essential tools for fans desiring maximum enhancement of race broadcasts.

Some progressive sponsors are beginning to figure out how to use this medium of social connection. Best Western is one of them.

Best Western has seen the growth of social networking and is putting the power of Twitter to use this weekend at Phoenix. Using Michael Waltrip Racing and No. 00 driver David Reutimann as the platform, Best Western has selected three of its Twitter followers to attend the race weekend and tweet to their heart's content. The differentiator with the Best Western promotion is that the flow of information will be coming from fans, not race team representatives.

The winners are Randall Martin from Worchester, Mass.; Rebecca Kivak from Plains, Pa.; and Nancy Mills from Memphis, Tenn. You can follow the Best Western Tweet Crew on Twitter -- @TweetCrewTeam -- starting Friday.

These three fans will have access to team meetings, conversations between Reutimann and his crew, and the tweets will be flying from all corners of PIR.

It is another landmark way for fans to get closer to the sport and MWR drivers.

So, we've gone from vinyl to 8-track to CDs to the iPod. We've gone from two cans on a string to dialing Sara for Mount Pilot to rotary phones to 4G cell service captured in a miniature multi-channel computer. We've gone from snail mail to overnight mail to fax to e-mail and now the Digital Revolution is raging with Facebook, Twitter and other emerging digital mediums.

Every step in technology has helped make our lives better and allowed us, the consumer, to have a choice and a voice. Who knows what is next. What I do know is that NASCAR executives are in a race of their own right now to find out and deliver it to sponsors and fans.

Ty Norris is vice president and general manager of Michael Waltrip Racing. He has worked within the NASCAR industry with MWR, Speedway Motorsports Inc., Dale Earnhardt Inc. and RJ Reynolds since 1990.