Stewart and Jessica Friesen will attempt to be second married couple to race in same NASCAR race

Nick Bromberg
·College football and motorsports writer
·2 min read
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Stewart and Jessica Friesen are attempting to be the first married couple to race in the same NASCAR race since Elton Sawyer and Patty Moise.

Stewart Friesen's Halmar Friesen Racing team said Thursday that Jessica would attempt to qualify a second truck for the team for the March 27 Truck Series race on the Bristol dirt track. If Jessica qualifies, the Friesens will be the second married couple to race in the same national NASCAR race and the first to race for the same team.

Stewart drives the No. 52 truck full-time and is currently sixth in the points standings. Jessica, who has raced at dirt tracks around the country, will attempt the race in the No. 62 truck.

"I've been racing sprint cars and modifieds on dirt for my entire racing career and it's amazing to get an opportunity to compete at this level," Jessica Friesen said in a statement. "I'm looking forward to the experience of driving a truck for the first time."

NASCAR announced ahead of the 2021 season that the spring races at Bristol Motor Speedway would be on dirt instead of the track's traditional concrete surface. Bristol has trucked in tons and tons of dirt to cover the half-mile track for what will be the first NASCAR Cup Series race on dirt.

The Truck Series has raced on dirt before. The series raced at Eldora Speedway in Ohio from 2013-19 before the race was canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. NASCAR and Eldora owner Tony Stewart — a three-time Cup Series champion and co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing — did not come to an agreement to renew the contract for 2021 and beyond.

Sawyer and Moise ran in the Busch Series

Sawyer and Moise raced in over 100 races together in NASCAR's second-tier Busch Series (now the Xfinity Series) from 1986-1998.

Their first race together in the series came at Road Atlanta in 1986 and their last race together was Moise's last start in 1998 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. While Sawyer won one race during Moise's Busch Series career, it came at Myrtle Beach in 1994 in a race that Moise didn't enter.

The last notable NASCAR couple to race together was Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. They competed in the Cup Series while they were dating from 2013-2017.

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