RPW Exclusive: Stewart Friesen Was Lights Out Friday Night At Fonda Speedway; Wins 200 Qualifier
Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – FONDA, NY – Stewart Friesen proved Friday night why he’s one of the favorites to win the Fonda 200 for a possible third time.
The Sprakers, NY driver simply obliterated the competition in his 15-lap qualifying event at Fonda Speedway to set himself up nicely at a possible $53,000 payday after 200 laps Saturday evening.
“This is our home,” Friesen said. “We love racing here at Fonda. It feels good to get a good draw to start off the night (drivers drew for heat starting spots) and finish it off with a heat race win.”
Friesen was in another zip code on Friday night, winning the qualifier over second place Andy Bachetti by a full straightaway. However, he and his team aren’t resting on their laurels.
“We’re going to go to work and tune on this thing,” he said. “Hopefully we can get a little better for tomorrow.”
The car that Friesen ran on Friday was a brand new Bicknell Chassis and seemed to perform pretty well.
“It’s a new car that we actually had put together for Jess (Friesen’s wife, Jessica),” he said. “With some different motor situations, as the season progressed, it was sitting there ready to go. Then, we had fresh bullet for this race and everything came together. Alex (Yankowski) was nice enough to shake it down last night.”
Is Friesen comfortable with the car?
“It’s pretty good,” he said. “I think we’ve got a couple tweaks to make on it for tomorrow but we’ll get it. Thanks to the whole Halmar team. I’ve got a great group of people behind me. This is one of our favorite weekends of the year and I’m proud to be here.”
44-Stewart Friesen[2]; 2. 4B-Andy Bachetti[4]; 3. 6B-Danny Bouc[1]; 4. 7D-Tyler Dippel[3]; 5. 20-David Schilling[7]; 6. 8H-Max McLaughlin[11]; 7. 35M-Mike Mahaney[6]; 8. 44P-Anthony Perrego[10]; 9. 93-Ryan Odasz[5]; 10. 6H-JR Hurlburt[9]; 11. 7J-Dan Santabarbara[12]; 12. 42X-Stephen Gray[8]
