When Stewart and Jessica Friesen put 5-year-old Parker to bed nowadays, there is no Netflix-and-chill.
No time for that, Jessica says. With a dirt race at Bristol Motor Speedway just a week away, those few hours every night are used to learn anything, and everything, about a Toyota Tundra.
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“I’ll ask him random, ridiculous questions all the time,” she said. “The other night when we got Parker to bed we were talking about shifting on restarts, and I’ve never been in a car where I had to have a manual transmission, so he’s out there with a Sharpie showing me on a piece of paper, and I had to take a picture.
“Those have been our nightly conversations about really any random thing.”
Next Saturday at Bristol, the Friesens will attempt to become the first married couple to compete in the same NASCAR race since Elton Sawyer and Patty Moise last did it in a 1998 Busch Series race at Atlanta.
Jessica has to race her way into Bristol event
Jessica will drive the No. 62 Toyota for Halmar Friesen Racing, while Stewart will be behind the wheel of his familiar No. 52 entry.
Because the No. 62 truck is an added entry, Jessica must race her way into the main event. There will be four, 15-minute heat races leading up to the 8 p.m. green flag.
“I don’t have the track time or the experience over the last six years, but everything is prepped,” Jessica said. “We have a great team, great equipment and the best teammate on the track.”
Jessica, 34, grew up racing go-karts, and has raced anything from sprint cars to modifieds most of her adult life. The two first met in the early-2000s at Utica-Rome (N.Y.) Speedway, and finished 1-2 in a modified race just two days after they got married in 2014.
Shortly after that, Jessica put racing on the back burner to care for Parker, who is on the autism spectrum. The couple also started their own screen-printing business — One Zee Tees — and make anything from shirts, to hats to beanies.
Five years later, with Parker healthy and responding well to therapy, Jessica is able to race again. The two finished 1-2 in a modified race in New York last summer, and when Stewart’s truck team had an extra entry for next week’s Bristol race, the two decided to put Jessica behind the wheel.
“Doing the modified stuff the last few years working as teammates, she’s been awesome,” said Stewart, 37, who has two career wins in the Truck Series and sits sixth in the points through three races this season.
“She’s very analytical of her car and knows what goes into it, so I’m looking forward to just seeing what she feels versus what I’m feeling. We know both trucks will be prepared the same, so I’m looking forward to that side of it more than anything.”
The NASCAR dirt weekend at Bristol will be the Cup Series’ first dirt-race since 1970.
The Truck Series, meanwhile, raced at Eldora’s dirt track from 2013-19, with Friesen winning the last event there in 2019.
“This will be a story for our grandkids someday,” Jessica said. “No matter what happens, we want to go out there and have fun, and hopefully it turns out well. Who knows what could happen.”