Anheuser-Busch has signed a new deal with Daytona International Speedway. The multi-year partnership makes Budweiser both exclusive official sponsor of the Speedway and title sponsor of the Budweiser Shootout. The brand will also start a non-exclusive partnership with Homestead-Miami Speedway next year.

Derrick Rose is featured in a new campaign for Adidas' adiZero Crazy Light basketball shoes. A new TV spot has him walking the streets of the Englewood section of Chicago, where he grew up. The ad broke on ESPN this week and will continue through the NBA Finals on TNT, ESPN and ABC.

Sears Holding will hire Dentsu Network's McGarryBowen as lead strategic and creative agency for the Sears brand. The job had been handled by the Chicago office of Y&R, which will keep work on Craftsman tools, DieHard auto parts and Kenmore among others Sears brands. Sears is also hiring Minneapolis firm Peterson Milla Hooks to create campaigns for Kmart apparel and home lines. That work had been at DraftFCB in Chicago. The agency will remain lead AOR for Kmart.

Los Angeles has passed Miami as the U.S. city getting the second-highest number of visitors from overseas. The stats from the U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries show L.A. had a 33% boost in visitors last year versus the year before, while Miami's numbers rose 17% during that period. Overseas visitors spend more and stay longer. California's travel and tourism commission says the average visitor from overseas spends $1,166 per trip versus $909 spent by the average visitor from Mexico. The top U.S. destination by far remains New York, which had 8.5 million visitors last year versus …

Several global factors are likely to get Americans behind the wheel to spend some of the Memorial Day weekend in the car. A struggling global economy, stronger dollar, and fewer immediate concerns about events in the Middle East have pushed crude prices down $10 a barrel since the beginning of the month. Gasoline prices have dipped below $4 a gallon in New England and elsewhere. While the drop is only symbolic, since prices at the pump are still high and probably going higher, it makes people feel good, says Chris Christopher an economist with IHS Global Insight. "Maybe they'll spend …

When Amazon offered Lady Gaga's new release "Born This Way" as an MP3 for 99 cents, the move was seen as a way to promote the online retailer's Cloud Drive program. Cloud Drive lets users store music files on remote servers rather than a hard drive and then stream content to via the web. Unfortunately, there were so many purchases that the company's servers could not handle the volume and users could not download or listen to the album. Customers took their complaints to the social web.

Technomic predicts that restaurant industry sales will grow 2.6% this year. That's an improvement over last year, but inflation will make those improvements irrelevant. "It's an improving picture but it's a long ways from where we used to be," said the Chicago-based consultancy's president, Ron Paul. He spoke at the Growth Chain Conference that precedes the National Restaurant Association Show.

Lance Armstrong is facing his biggest battle since he beat cancer. The Tour de France icon has been accused over the years of doping, but in a "60 Minutes" interview this week his former teammate Tyler Hamilton said it's all true: that he -- Hamilton -- got endurance-boosting drugs from Armstrong and that the International Cycling Union helped with the cover-up. AdAge did a Twitter poll to see where people stand on the issue of whether this will hurt his brand. The responses are all over the map.

Weight Watchers will use McCann Erickson New York for a social marketing effort after a review. Razorfish will continue to handle social analytics, while McCann handles strategic engagement. The agency has also done programs for Kohl's, Nikon and General Mills.

K-C is doing its biggest multibrand retail-marketing program in eight years with "Cars 2." The push behind the film, which premiers June 2, brings in six K-C diaper, tissue and towel brands. The company's effort is representative of how multi-brand companies are putting a range of products behind sports, films and other entertainment events. While the effort is global, in the U.S. the company will have in-cinema ads, a national coupon drop in newspapers, direct mail, ads on Walmart's in-store TV, and social media elements. There will also be a promotion that puts 3-D glasses in Kleenex packages. The glasses …