Stewart Friesen

Friesen's modified car at Georgetown Speedway in March 2018

Friesen got hooked on racing early in life, his family owning Ransomville Speedway in western New York.[3] 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.[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.[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]

Sometimes, Friesen runs NASCAR and dirt on the same day.[9] He maintains an active presence on New York dirt tracks like Fonda, Ransomville, Five Mile Point and Utica-Rome.[10]

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 maiden voyage resulted in a 28th-place finish. Running five more races in the season, Friesen recorded three top twenty 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 No. 52 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-race hiatus before returning at Kentucky in July.[15] At Eldora, Friesen won the pole and stayed in the position for the start of the feature after winning his heat race.[16] He led over half the laps and claimed the victory in the second stage but lost the lead to Matt Crafton in the closing laps, finishing a 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]

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 2nd 3 times throughout the year, he finished 7th in final points 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 in spring, 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, 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 finally broke through to win his first career NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Eldora.[22]

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

^* Season still in progress
¹ Ineligible for series points