Notes: Biffle paces Happy Hour, wants to stay at RFR (cont'd)

"It just gets to a point where [you say], 'Hey, I need a timeout. I've got to clear my head and start over again.' You used to be able to do that over the winter, but now there's so much pressure year-round that it's hard to do."

Stewart gets Daytona Nationwide Series, World of Outlaws sponsor

Armor All will sponsor Tony Stewart in next year's Nationwide Series season opener at Daytona, but the working relationship won't end there. Tony Stewart Racing driver Donny Schatz will also have Armor All backing for the entire 2008 World of Outlaws campaign.

As part of the agreement, the company will make a $50,000 donation to the Tony Stewart Foundation, and the three-time Cup champion will also appear on product packaging. There's more. The driver will appear in print and television ads for Armor All, some of which have already been filmed.

"I'm excited about it," Stewart said. "The people from Armor All have been an absolute blast. When you see the spot, you'll realize we had a pretty good time shooting it. The stuff that won't make the cut was even funnier. We had a good time with it."

While Stewart fields a handful of teams in various USAC open-wheel divisions, he'd previously only run one on the World of Outlaws circuit. He's looking forward to bringing a multi-team mentality to WoO.

"It's neat for us to finally expand to a two-car team," Stewart said. "There's not very many of the World of Outlaw teams that have branched out past one car. So I think maybe we're gonna be one of the first teams to adopt the Cup aspect of utilizing resources and sharing information. Hopefully, we can take both teams even higher competition-wise."

Carlson introduced as national champion

As racing seasons go, Steve Carlson had a fairly decent one.

Check that. He had an amazing season at Lacrosse Fairgrounds Speedway in Wisconsin, one in which he scored 20 top-five finishes in 23 starts en route to the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Championship. Carlson, in racing for 32 years, is also a nine-time champion of the former NASCAR Elite Division, Midwest Series.

"This is by far the biggest title I've ever won," Carlson said Friday afternoon during a press conference at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "All the drivers and all the teams in Canada and Mexico and this country, we beat 'em all. This is the biggest win by far because I don't just race against 25 other guys. I race against a whole bunch of 'em [from across the country]."

Tim Jacobs fields the Chevrolets that Carlson drives at Lacrosse, as well as those of Kevin Nuttleman and Emily Sue Steck. Nuttleman was second to Carlson in points at the Lacrosse short track and sixth in the nation, while Steck took rookie of the year honors.

Carlson's son, 19-year-old Michael, also races at Lacrosse. He was highly impressed by his surroundings at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"Everything's cool about this," Carlson said. "This is actually the first time I've ever been here, and it's a pretty awesome place."