FONDA, N.Y. — If Stewart Friesen was a baseball player, his batting average would make him the highest paid player in the major leagues.
Friesen’s $10,000 score in Sunday night’s Bob Hilbert Sportswear Short Track Super Series Firecracker 50 at the Fonda Speedway marked his third win in the three runnings of the Independence Day event, with the win also raising his season batting average at the egg-shaped fairgrounds oval to eight for nine.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular’s virtually unchallenged win came at the expense of regional superstars Billy Decker, Matt Sheppard and Mat Williamson, with Pennsylvania invader Mike Gular home fifth.
The Canadian transplant’s 75th Fonda win was even more impressive in that it came on a night when the normally smooth racing surface was rough and rutted following a few days of rain that washed out Saturday’s program altogether.
Flat tires and collapsed suspensions were the order of the evening, with barely half of the 30 starters still mobile at the checkers, but Friesen’s Halmar International No. 44 looked like he was riding on the nearby Thruway.
“I just tried to roll the outside, above all the holes,” tipped Friesen. “I was really good in three and four but the other end was a bit tougher. I decided that I had to get the lapped cars quick, because they’d hit a hole and get out of shape, so I just kept running as hard as I could.
“I love this place. We don’t usually run the sail panels here but they tightened the car up and we were really good tonight.”
The 12-car redraw put Fonda point leader Rocky Warner on the pole with Sheppard alongside and Friesen in the next row. Sheppard, the only entrant without sail panels on his modified, shot into the lead on the initial break with Warner, Friesen and Mike Mahaney settling in behind him.
By lap seven Sheppard was lapping the tailenders but the first of the night’s seven yellows flew right after that as Mahaney had the first of many flat tires.
The restart saw Sheppard get a big jump and Friesen shoot by Warner for second as the fourth running Decker slid all the way to the turn one wall to fall to the back of the top 10.
Max McLaughlin’s flat a lap later brought another yellow, with Friesen then turning up the wick and scooting inside Sheppard for the lead as they hit turn one.
From there, it was a matter of riding it out for Friesen, who would build up a straightaway lead after every restart only to give it up when another car would pull up with a flat. Between yellows, Decker managed to claw his way back to third before losing the spot again to Warner, who then managed to edge by Sheppard for second just past halfway.
But Warner’s luck ran out when a skirmish with a lapped car sent him into the frontstretch wall, ending his night.
The night’s eighth and final yellow came on a restart with 41 laps in the books. Williamson tagged the outside wall at the flagger’s stand and checked up, with the resulting scramble sending Tyler Dippel hard into the turn one wall.
With order restored Friesen once more drove away from the field to win by a straightaway while Sheppard, second to that point, hit turn one too hard on the restart and gave place money to Decker.
“I was working on knocking that turn one wall down early on,” tipped Decker. “I just couldn’t find the top just right down there but I was really good in three and four.” Then, in a classic bit of understatement, Decker offered that second “wasn’t too bad, because Friesen’s pretty good here.”
Anthony Perrego advanced from a consi win that put him 22nd on the grid to lead the second five, trailed by provisional starter Andy Bachetti, Jessica Friesen, Alex Yankowski and Josh Hohenforst.
In the Bob Hilbert Sportswear 602 Sportsman finale, Cody Clark bested Chad Edwards, Mark Mortensen, Tanner Warner and Tim Hartman Jr to claim the $2,000 win.