The Friesen Racing Team began as most things do, a pipedream or idea. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be involved with drag racing. By the way, my name is Thomas Friesen.
I like to say that I came up with the idea of starting Friesen Racing. But a girlfriend I had could see us wearing team jackets, before Friesen Racing was even a gleam in the eye.
The "team" came about, after I left the active-duty military and moved back to Arizona. Not more than two months after I had moved back to Arizona, did my father come upon a deal on a well-maintained 1992 Ford Mustang LX 5.0L Coupe. This is Friesen Racing's first team car.
As soon as my girlfriend saw this car, she dubbed it "Hot Lix". E-mail me, and I'll tell you about it's meaning.
This car was doing the "Point A-to-B Shuffle", taking me to my military reserve dates, roadtrips to interstate destinations, and just plain driving for the fun of it! Most every weekend, I was out at one of the local quarter-mile dragstrips, in Phoenix, Arizona, burning the tires and blowing the carbon off the tops of its pistons! The first passes down the strip were a couple of blistering 16-second runs. Needless to say, I had, up until that time, never run down the business end of a dragstrip! It wasn't too long before I had managed to read what my pony was trying to tell me and I was soon running high-14s.
I started to think that, if I could get really good at this, I should start a team. I, practically, had the team already started. When I went out to the track, my father would go with me to help out and watch me race. Soon, I was taking a clipboard with a home-made logsheet. I would mark down everything I felt was relevant about my runs and keep them around for usable data. By taking our time, recording data, and choosing the right direction for modifications to go, we've whittled the E.T. down to just over 14 seconds, flat!
Sometimes, my mother gets into the act, by showing up at one of the weekend races to cheer us on and video tape our runs.
With that, I'll leave you to go browse through our other departments. Until we meet at the Christmas Tree, good racing to you.
