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Stewart Friesen

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Stewart Friesen
Friesen at Darlington Raceway in 2021
BornStewart J. Friesen
(1983-07-25) July 25, 1983 (age 41)
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada
Achievements2014 NASCAR New York State Champion[1]
2013, 2014, 2015 Race of Champions Dirt Modified Tour
NASCAR Cup Series career
1 race run over 1 year
2021 position55th
Best finish55th (2021)
First race2021 Food City Dirt Race (Bristol Dirt)
Wins Top tens Poles
0 0 0
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career
184 races run over 9 years
Truck no., teamNo. 52 (Halmar Friesen Racing)
2024 position12th
Best finish4th (2019)
First race2016 Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby (Eldora)
Last race2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship Race (Phoenix)
First win2019 Eldora Dirt Derby (Eldora)
Last win2022 SpeedyCash.com 220 (Texas)
Wins Top tens Poles
3 85 4
NASCAR Canada Series career
3 races run over 2 years
2023 position40th
Best finish39th (2022)
First race2022 Pinty's 100 (Ohsweken)
Last race2023 Pinty's 100 (Ohsweken)
Wins Top tens Poles
0 1 0
Statistics current as of November 8, 2024.

Stewart J. Friesen (born July 25, 1983) is a Canadian-American professional dirt track and stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 52 Toyota Tundra for his own team, Halmar Friesen Racing, and part-time at local dirt tracks across New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere in the United States, driving the No. 44 car for HFR.

Racing career

[edit]

Early years

[edit]
Friesen's modified car at Georgetown Speedway in March 2018

Friesen started racing early in life, his family owning Ransomville Speedway in Western New York.[2] After racing go-karts, Friesen raced big-blocks with widespread success in the Northeast United States, advancing to the 2010 World Finals at Charlotte Motor Speedway.[3] He was the 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 Modified track champion at Fonda Speedway.[4]

He was one of the top competitors in the SuperDIRT Series in the mid-2010s, and he also has triumphed in the World of Outlaws sprint car series, winning over 230 career races as of the end of the 2017 season.[5] He has won the Syracuse 200 Modified race four times.[6] Friesen has run over 900 dirt races in his career.[7] Eventually, he met Chris Larsen, who gave Friesen his first NASCAR ride at Eldora Speedway, which was supposed to be a one-time deal. However, the partnership blossomed into a full-time ride.[8]

On occasion, Friesen runs NASCAR and dirt on the same day.[9] He maintains an active presence on New York dirt tracks such as Fonda Speedway and Utica-Rome Speedway.[10]

NASCAR

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Breaking into NASCAR with the 2016 Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby, Friesen put his No. 16 Halmar Racing truck into the twelfth starting spot on the grid by virtue of a second-place finish in his heat. However, contact with Caleb Holman ruined his night,[11] and Friesen's debut race resulted in a 28th-place finish. Running five more races in the season, Friesen recorded three top 20 finishes, the best being a 13th at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.[12]

On January 9, 2017, Friesen announced that he would run the full 2017 season in the Halmar Friesen Racing (HFR) No. 52 truck with Tommy Baldwin Jr. coming on as a team manager.[13][14] In June, following the first seven races of the season, HFR announced it would undergo a two-week hiatus before returning at Kentucky Speedway in July.[15] At Eldora, Friesen qualified on the pole position and remained in the place for the start of the feature after winning his heat race.[16] He led more than half the laps and claimed the victory in the second stage but lost the lead to Matt Crafton in the closing laps, finishing a then-career-best second.[17] About a month after Eldora run, the team took another two-race break while severing its relationship with Baldwin and making a new technical alliance with GMS Racing.[18] After returning to competition, Friesen scored four finishes of seventh or better in the season's last six races, climbing to fourteenth in the season-ending points tally.[19]

Friesen's 2019 truck at Homestead

For 2018, HFR continued the alliance with GMS, so much so that GMS driver Johnny Sauter referenced Friesen as a teammate. After advancing to the playoffs and a best finish of second on three occasions throughout the year, he finished seventh in the final points standings after being eliminated in the Round of 8.

Friesen remained at HFR in an alliance with GMS for the third straight year in 2019. He was also contacted by JR Motorsports to run a partial schedule in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but nothing came of it.[20] At Kansas Speedway, Friesen led both practices, won both Stage One and Stage Two and led the most laps, but ran out of fuel with three laps to go due to a pit communication on the previous pit stop, in which the fuelman did not put enough fuel in the truck, handing the win to Ross Chastain and relegating Friesen to 15th, furthering a streak of near-misses for Friesen.[21] On August 1, 2019, Friesen won his first career NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Eldora.[22] On November 8, Friesen achieved his second career victory and his first on a paved track by winning at Phoenix after passing Brandon Jones with four laps remaining.[23] As a result, Friesen qualified for the Championship 4 for the first time but ultimately finished 11th at Homestead and fourth in the final standings.

After missing the playoffs in 2020, Friesen later abandoned a full-time Truck schedule and skipped a race at Kansas Speedway in order to run the Short Track Super Series at Port Royal Speedway.[24] On the night of the Kansas truck event, Friesen finished second to Mat Williamson in a $53,000-to-win race at Port Royal.[25]

Friesen returned with his No. 52 team to the Truck Series full-time in 2021, and despite having a worse season and missing the playoffs in 2020, HFR remained with Toyota. Later in the year, Friesen would make his debut in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 77 for Spire Motorsports in the series' new dirt race at Bristol. Despite driving a Toyota in the Truck Series, Friesen drove for Spire, a Chevrolet team, in this one race. He finished 23rd, one lap down.[26] Despite not winning a Truck race for the second straight season, Friesen made the Playoffs, scored his best of 2nd in the season finale at Phoenix, and finished sixth in the final standings.

Friesen's No. 52 truck at Sonoma Raceway in 2022

On May 20, 2022, Friesen broke a 54-race winless streak in the Truck Series by scoring his third career victory at Texas after passing Christian Eckes for the lead in Overtime.

Personal life

[edit]

Friesen grew up in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and played hockey as a child. He attended the University of Windsor, attaining a degree in science.[27]

Friesen is married to Jessica Friesen (née Zemken).[28] The two have one son.[2] Friesen and his wife also run a t-shirt printing business (One-Zee Tees), which was originally a fallback plan in case racing did not work out.[27] They live in Sprakers, New York.[29] Like her husband, Jessica also is a dirt racing driver and she attempted to make her Truck Series debut in a second HFR truck, the No. 62, at the Bristol dirt race in 2021.[30] However, she failed to qualify after the qualifying heat races were canceled due to rain.[31]

Motorsports career results

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NASCAR

[edit]

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. Small number below track name denotes finishing position.)

Cup Series

[edit]
NASCAR Cup Series results
Year Team No. Make 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 NCSC Pts Ref
2021 Spire Motorsports 77 Chevy DAY DRC HOM LVS PHO ATL BRD
23 		MAR RCH TAL KAN DAR DOV COA CLT SON NSH POC POC ROA ATL NHA GLN IRC MCH DAY DAR RCH BRI LVS TAL ROV TEX KAN MAR PHO 55th 01 [32]

Craftsman Truck Series

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NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series results
Year Team No. Make 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NCTC Pts Ref
2016 Halmar Racing 16 Chevy DAY ATL MAR KAN DOV CLT TEX IOW GTW KEN ELD
28 		POC BRI
22 		MCH MSP CHI NHA
13 		LVS
19 		TAL MAR TEX PHO
18 		HOM
29 		33rd 69 [12]
2017 Halmar Friesen Racing 52 DAY
31 		ATL
19 		MAR
25 		KAN
32 		CLT
23 		DOV
28 		TEX
22 		GTW IOW KEN
12 		ELD
2* 		POC
12 		MCH
13 		BRI
29 		MSP CHI NHA
5 		LVS
23 		TAL
17 		MAR
6 		TEX
14 		PHO
6 		HOM
7 		14th 422 [19]
2018 DAY
27 		ATL
6 		LVS
5 		MAR
20 		DOV
23 		KAN
3 		CLT
6 		TEX
2 		IOW
9 		GTW
13 		CHI
19 		KEN
2 		ELD
3 		POC
4 		MCH
8 		BRI
2 		MSP
7 		LVS
17 		TAL
6 		MAR
11 		TEX
8 		PHO
5 		HOM
4 		7th 2265 [33]
2019 DAY
10 		ATL
18 		LVS
4 		MAR
5 		TEX
2 		DOV
12 		KAN
15* 		CLT
3 		TEX
20 		IOW
5 		GTW
3 		CHI
3 		KEN
2 		POC
32 		ELD
1 		MCH
8 		BRI
4 		MSP
7 		LVS
19 		TAL
5 		MAR
6 		PHO
1 		HOM
11 		4th 4026 [34]
2020 Toyota DAY
21 		LVS
9 		CLT
30 		ATL
10 		HOM
14 		POC
8 		KEN
15 		TEX
4 		KAN
27 		KAN
34 		MCH
39 		DRC
10 		DOV
9 		GTW
5 		DAR
8 		RCH
10 		BRI
32 		LVS
4 		TAL
17 		KAN TEX
28 		MAR
6 		PHO
6 		15th 504 [35]
2021 DAY
32 		DRC
11 		LVS
4 		ATL
10 		BRD
12 		RCH
13 		KAN
14 		DAR
25 		COA
17 		CLT
4 		TEX
34 		NSH
5 		POC
33 		KNX
27 		GLN
20 		GTW
4 		DAR
3 		BRI
4 		LVS
6 		TAL
22 		MAR
17 		PHO
2 		6th 2275 [36]
2022 DAY
16 		LVS
3 		ATL
6* 		COA
9 		MAR
13 		BRD
11 		DAR
12 		KAN
14 		TEX
1* 		CLT
9 		GTW
4 		SON
31 		KNX
5 		NSH
5 		MOH
4 		POC
14 		IRP
4 		RCH
11 		KAN
20 		BRI
7 		TAL
20 		HOM
3 		PHO
5 		6th 2276 [37]
2023 DAY
28 		LVS
14 		ATL
22 		COA
14 		TEX
3 		BRD
23 		MAR
31 		KAN
4 		DAR
2 		NWS
13 		CLT
22 		GTW
3 		NSH
18 		MOH
4 		POC
32 		RCH
27 		IRP
30 		MLW
30 		KAN
7 		BRI
14 		TAL
34 		HOM
6 		PHO
24 		12th 537 [38]
2024 DAY
14 		ATL
23 		LVS
18 		BRI
22 		COA
20 		MAR
19 		TEX
13 		KAN
25 		DAR
14 		NWS
10 		CLT
2 		GTW
8 		NSH
11 		POC
7 		IRP
33 		RCH
25 		MLW
20 		BRI
9 		KAN
24 		TAL
13 		HOM
6 		MAR
10 		PHO
18 		12th 557 [39]

* Season still in progress
1 Ineligible for series points

Pinty's Series

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NASCAR Pinty's Series results
Year Team No. Make 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NPSC Pts Ref
2022 22 Racing 22 Chevy SUN MSP ACD AVE TOR EDM SAS SAS CTR OSK
2 		ICAR MSP DEL 39th 42 [40]
2023 Wight Motorsports 19 Chevy SUN MSP ACD AVE TOR EIR SAS SAS CTR OSK
6 		OSK
22 		ICAR MSP DEL 40th 60 [41]

References

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  1. ^ "2014 Whelen All-American Series". The Third Turn. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  2. ^ a b Eggert, Seth. "Climbing the Ladder: Stewart Friesen". Motorsports Tribune. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  3. ^ "Stewart Friesen Brings Red-Hot Big-Block Modified Act to World Finals Nov. 4-6". www.charlottemotorspeedway.com (Press release). November 1, 2010. Archived from the original on April 5, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  4. ^ "Fonda Speedway Track Champions" (pdf). Fonda Speedway. Retrieved August 29, 2020.
  5. ^ "Stewart Friesen". SuperDIRT Car Series. Archived from the original on December 30, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  6. ^ Batz, Mike (October 14, 2015). "Local Auto Racing: Stewart Friesen wins finale at historic Moody Mile in Syracuse". Lebanon Daily News. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
  7. ^ "NE Modified Facts & Stats – Stewart Friesen – Driver Profile". nemodfacts.racestatcentral.com. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  8. ^ Johns, Clayton (January 11, 2017). "Friesen's Big-Block Modified Roots Helped Create NASCAR Ride". DIRTcar Racing. Archived from the original on January 12, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  9. ^ O'Brien, Dick (September 25, 2016). "Stewart Friesen does double duty in NASCAR trucks, Super DIRTcar Series". syracuse.com. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  10. ^ "Stewart Friesen – ARRA – Documenting Racing History". sites.google.com. Retrieved December 30, 2017.[permanent dead link‍]
  11. ^ "Trucks: Friesen and Holman Start Big Wreck – Eldora 2016 | FOX Sports". FOX Sports. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
  12. ^ a b "Stewart Friesen – 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  13. ^ Eggert, Seth. "Stewart Friesen To Campaign Full NASCAR Camping World Truck Season in 2017". Motorsports Tribune. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
  14. ^ "Halmar Friesen Racing debuts in Camping World Truck Series". NASCAR.com (Press release). NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. January 9, 2017. Archived from the original on January 11, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
  15. ^ "Halmar Friesen Racing taking two-week hiatus from Truck competition". Jayski's Silly Season Site. ESPN. June 13, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
  16. ^ Utter, Jim (July 19, 2017). "Canadian Stewart Friesen to start from pole for Eldora Dirt Derby". Motorsport. Motorsport.com. Archived from the original on December 30, 2017. Retrieved July 19, 2017.
  17. ^ Southers, Tim (July 20, 2017). ""Second sucks": Stewart Friesen reflects on solid Eldora Speedway run". Motorsport.com. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  18. ^ Bonkowski, Jerry (August 23, 2017). "Halmar Friesen Racing Truck team splits with Tommy Baldwin Jr., forms alliance with GMS Racing". NASCAR Talk. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  19. ^ a b "Stewart Friesen – 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  20. ^ "264 – Gary Balough: Racing, Fighting & Smuggling". Player.fm. Dirty Mo Media. Retrieved September 3, 2019.[permanent dead link‍]
  21. ^ Hauff, Brandon (May 10, 2019). "Ross Chastain Scores First Career NASCAR Truck Series Win at Kansas, Heartbreak For Stewart Friesen". Frontstretch. Retrieved May 13, 2019.
  22. ^ Cain, Holly (August 1, 2019). "Stewart Friesen scores first Gander Trucks victory, wins at Eldora". NASCAR.com. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved August 2, 2019.
  23. ^ Fair, Asher. "NASCAR Truck Series: Stewart Friesen wins 2019 Lucas Oil 150". Fansided. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
  24. ^ Tomlinson, Joy (October 4, 2020). "Stewart Friesen Not Racing Truck Series at Kansas Speedway". Frontstretch. Retrieved October 5, 2020.
  25. ^ O'Brien, Dick (October 18, 2020). "Mat Williamson passes Stewart Friesen for $53K win at Port Royal". Syracuse.com. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  26. ^ "Stewart Friesen driving for No. 77 for Spire Motorsports at Bristol dirt race". Jayski's Silly Season Site. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. March 16, 2021.
  27. ^ a b Crandall, Kelly. "Episode 45: Stewart Friesen". Omny.fm. Archived from the original on October 11, 2018. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  28. ^ Yasinsac, Robin (June 24, 2015). "Local auto racing: Stewart Friesen, Jessica Zemken make a great team". Times Union. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  29. ^ Wang, Jackson (May 13, 2020). "NASCAR's Halmar Friesen Racing Donates Food to Montgomery County". Spectrum News. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  30. ^ "Jessica Friesen to make Camping World Truck Series debut alongside husband on Bristol dirt". NASCAR.com. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. March 11, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2021.
  31. ^ Estrada, Chris (March 27, 2021). "Bristol Truck dirt race starting lineup". NBC Sports. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  32. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2021 NASCAR Cup Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved December 25, 2021.
  33. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2018 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved November 4, 2018.
  34. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2019 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
  35. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved November 6, 2020.
  36. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2021 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  37. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2022 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved February 19, 2022.
  38. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved February 23, 2023.
  39. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved February 16, 2024.
  40. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2022 NASCAR Pinty's Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
  41. ^ "Stewart Friesen – 2023 NASCAR Pinty's Series Results". Racing-Reference. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
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