Stewart Friesen(Photo: Getty Images)
Stewart Friesen is one of the busiest and most successful racers in the country. The two-time race winner on the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series who was one of the Championship 4 contenders in the NASCAR Playoffs in 2019 has also won scores of Big Block Modified feature races. With all of his past success, it would be easy for the 37-year-old racing star to continue doing that which he has done so well in the past rather than expand to new endeavors.
Recently, however, the five-time winner of the prestigious Syracuse 200 Modified race has taken on the task of competing in the highly competitive Super Late Model division on dirt. During the early portion of the 2021 season Friesen and his Halmar Friesen Racing team have entered their Longhorn Chassis machine in events sanctioned by the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and the Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar Series.
The results initially were not what Friesen and business partner Chris Larsen might have hoped for. But there has been a steady progression since their first effort which manifested itself on the final night of SpeedWeeks for the LOLMDS.
Friesen scored a win in the fourth heat race of the night against some of dirt racing’s toughest competition when that national touring series took to the track at Florida’s Bubba Raceway Park on February 2nd. The native of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario then followed that preliminary effort up with a seventh-place effort in the main event.
“It’s something we’ve thought about and wanted to do for a while,” Friesen told InsideDirtRacing.com in an interview conducted prior to the recent Xtreme DIRTcar Series race held at Cherokee Speedway. “My business partner, Chris Larsen, loves watching Dirt Late Model racing and he wanted us to get involved so we decided we would try it. We’ve raced a lot on dirt with the Big Block Modified but thought this kind of racing not only looked like fun but would be a great challenge so we decided to give it our best shot.”
The driver whose win total is approaching 300, with most coming in the Big Block Modified class, has relied on advice from someone who has experienced success in a Late Model after also capturing checkered flags in Modified competition.
“We got together with the people at Longhorn Chassis and they helped us get a car together,” Friesen explained. “We got some great help from people like Tim McCreadie and a lot of others. Of course, I’ve known Timmy for a long time through the Modified stuff we’ve done. We’re excited about it and thankful for the opportunity to do what we do. We’re looking forward to developing it and becoming more competitive.”
Stewart Friesen’s No. 44 Longhorn
And his most recent results indicate that the current resident of Sprakers, NY has indeed become more competitive. That seventh-place finish in Ocala, FL were then followed by a pair of top-5 runs this past weekend with the Xtreme DIRTcar Series. The veteran racer believes the learning process in the Late Model has been a rapid one.
“We learned a lot down in Florida and we were running pretty well down there by the time we left,” he recounted. “We won a heat and ran with them pretty well on our last night so we feel like it started coming together. We were pretty decent last night at Lake View, we made the feature and finished in the top-5 so we’re looking forward to seeing how we do today.”
Between his successively improved runs in the Late Model in Florida, Friesen added two Big Block Modified triumphs at Volusia Speedway Park. The driver of the No. 44 Late Model does not necessarily believe it was a coincidence that his No. 44 Modified performed as well as it did in the ‘Sunshine State’.
“They’re two very different worlds in terms of the feel you get from each car,” Friesen explained of the two types of dirt racing cars. “They drive pretty different but there are some things that were similar in the setup stuff that we were able to take from the Late Model and apply to the Modified that we had some success with at Volusia.”
Going into the venture, Friesen thought he might be able to use some of the same setup techniques he had used in another form of racing.
“I actually thought there might be more similarities with some of the stuff we were doing back when I did some Sprint Car racing but they are out there in another world as far as the feel goes and the setups,” he stated. “But we’re learning each time we go to the track and having fun with it. I’m not really sure what our schedule will look like with the Late Model for the rest of the year but we’re very fortunate to get to do what we do in the Trucks, the Modifieds, and this is thanks to Halmar and the great partners we have.”
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