CANUCKS AT SPEEDWEEKS: BALCAEN & FRIESEN

Story by Bryce Turner

It was an eventful Speedweeks for both Amber Balcaen and Stewart Friesen at Daytona International Speedway. Balcaen joined Venturini Motorsports for the ARCA Menards Series event, where her first race with the team came a year after making her series debut. The race weekend got off to a rough start, with mechanical issues sidelining her during qualifying, resulting in a 35th-place starting position.

The Winnipeg, MB driver was up for the challenge, working her way towards the front, where she was in contention late in the race. Balcaen ran as high as third before ultimately finishing a career-best sixth place.

“This was the craziest race I’ve ever raced in my life,” Balcaen wrote in a post on her Facebook page. “We were two- and threewide all race long, coming from the back to the front multiple times was a thrill.”

Even more impressive was a late-race obstacle that she faced before the final restart, which came with three laps to go.

“We lost power steering with four to go but still held on to it,” she wrote in the post. “All in all, had a blast.”

Balcaen’s primary sponsor from last season returned for Daytona, with Canadian-based RV products company ICON Technologies aboard her No. 15 Toyota.

In the NASCAR Truck Series, Stewart Friesen ran a special paint scheme on his No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota. The rainbow-coloured wrap represented the Autism Colour Spectrum, while promoting a golf event where NASCAR stars raise money for people affected with autism. The cause hits close to home for Friesen, whose son Parker was diagnosed with autism at the age of one-and-a-half.

On-track, Friesen started 23rd in the Friday night race, which was slowed twice by rain in the early laps. The Niagara-on-theLake, ON driver worked his way towards the front, where he was leading the outside lane coming to the end of stage two. He moved up to block Ben Rhodes on the backstretch when contact from Rhodes sent him into the wall.

Friesen’s team was able to repair the truck enough to extend their night, where he finished 28th, five laps down. IT