Steve Carlson got an up-close look at NASCAR Nextel Cup Series racing when he made his first visit to Lowe’s Motor Speedway this past weekend.
“Everything is cool. This is the first time I have ever been here,” he said. “It is a pretty awesome place.”

The 50-year-old Carlson isn’t much of a talker. He’s never needed to be. But what Carlson is, is one helluva a short-track racer.

The 50-year-old Carlson isn’t much of a talker. He’s never needed to be. But what Carlson is, is one helluva a short-track racer.The Wisconsin native proved that again this season, adding yet another notch to an already impressive racing resume that spans more than 30 years.
Carlson raced for the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series weekly racing title for the first time and earned the coveted championship by six points over Connecticut youngster Woody Pitkat.
It wasn’t the first championship for Carlson, though. He’s won nine NASCAR Midwest Series late-model championships, several of which came when the now-defunct series was known as the ARTGO Challenge Series.
He’s won hundreds of races, including victories with ASA and various other stock-car racing sanctioning bodies, but he called this season’s championship his “biggest title.”
“I didn’t just race against 25 or 30 other drivers,” Carlson said, “I raced against the entire nation.”
Carlson won eight races and posted 20 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes while racing weekly at LaCrosse Fairgrounds Speedway, a five-eighths-mile asphalt oval that Carlson calls his “home track.”
But when Carlson started the season in team owner Tim Jacobs’s No. 66 he had no intention of chasing the national championship.
“We were going to race a series full time and part time at my home track,” Carlson explained. “After the first two nights we had a 30-point lead and then I skipped out and we fell to third, but my car owner talked me into running for the championship.”
In addition to racing against two teammates in the Jacobs stable, there was another competitor in the weekly fields at LaCrosse of special interest to Carlson. His 19-year-old son, Michael, raced there full time and finished 10th in the standings, while his father claimed the track championship.
“One of the neat things about racing at my home track is that I get to pit alongside my son and I get to help him every week,” Carlson said. “He’s getting a lot better.”
Carlson knows he’s not on the fast track to a big-time NASCAR career, but he’s not ready to quit yet, either.
“Unfortunately I was born 30 years too soon,” Carlson said. “I don’t know how to put it into words. I am still really good at it. I have been racing for 30-some years and as long as I am good at it I am going to keep doing it.”
And he’ll probably win a few more championships as well.