Tony Stewart's going Down Under for the holidays

Traveling to see your family over the holidays? It's a good bet you're not going to be traveling anywhere near as far as Tony Stewart, who'll be going all the way to Australia to compete at Sydney's Tyrepower Parramatta City Raceway later this month.

Okay, let's go ahead and get all our Crocodile Dundee / "shrimp on the barbie" / "dingo ate my baby" / Midnight Oil jokes out of the way right now. Though I will say that a reverse-Dundee movie, with Smoke set loose in Australia to wreak havoc, would be well worth watching.

Smoke will be joining World of Outlaws Champion Donny Schatz and All Star Series Champion Tim Shaffer in the late-December races. It marks the first time since the mid-70s that a driver at the top of his game -- in that case, A.J. Foyt -- has visited Australia to race.

Stewart's appearance in Australia is huge, seeing as how he's aligning with an Australian legend, Gary Rush, to run in four major Australian events

What this does is take another step toward establishing NASCAR as a major international force. Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson have been regulars at international competitions, and now Smoke is representing NASCAR to an entire continent. (Heaven help us.)

In all seriousness, he's the perfect spokesman for NASCAR in a land where nobody knows what a "Dale Earnhardt" is. It'll make for some fine New Year's news ... as long as Tony stays away from the Vegemite. That stuff's poison, man.