Stewart Friesen and Harrison Burton claimed top-five finishes in Friday night’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series Strat 200 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
After a decent qualifying run of seventh, Friesen was looking for his first win Friday night at Las Vegas Motor Speedway especially after having so many strong runs last year only to come short.
Friesen was quiet in Stage 1 as he finished in the seventh position, but when Stage 2 began Friesen made some noise.
He took the lead on Lap 39 from Kyle Busch and led until Lap 54 for 16 laps. Friesen held Busch up the best he could, but it wasn’t enough as Busch took the lead away and Friesen finished second in Stage 2.
He restarted fourth for Stage 3 and had a battle with Ross Chastain, Matt Crafton, and Brett Moffitt for second. Friesen made his pit stop with 25 to go, but it was too much ground to make up and finished fourth for the 12th top-five of his career.
“We just got mixed up on tires, mixed-match sets there after the 04 (Cory Roper) drive on the side of us,” Friesen told MRN Radio. “Gotta be aggressive, but too aggressive on the start. Probably should have given him more room, but solid run for us tonight. We’ll take it. We raced with the best of the best there for a while.”
“So it was pretty cool, but just lost a little bit of handling at the end of the night,” the No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing driver explained to MRN Radio. “Just happy to be here.”
Friesen will be looking to carrying this momentum to Martinsville, where he may collect his first win of his career.
Harrison Burton, driver of the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 18 Safelite AutoGlass Toyota Tundra made his first Las Vegas start tonight at the 1.5-mile speedway. Needless to say it was a great night for the No. 18 team, after who finishing fifth.
“We were a little bit too tight, center off and both ends of the corner,” Burton told MRN Radio. “(Turns) 3 and 4 were a little worse, then 1 and 2. I’m still learning, some of its me and I’m still trying to get myself better as well. So, came out here with a good night and a good finish, so had some good stage points all the way through I feel like.”
“So, we will build on that and have a good night, move on and work on our truck for Martinsville.”
Burton finished fourth and sixth in both stages, respectively.
