Friesen grew up in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, where he played hockey as a child before gravitating toward motorsport. He attended the University of Windsor and earned a degree in science. Racing became a serious pursuit early in life, aided by his family's ownership of Ransomville Speedway in Western New York.
Starting out in go-karts, Friesen moved up to big-block modified racing and quickly established dominance in the Northeast. He claimed the Modified track championship at Fonda Speedway four consecutive times from 2012 through 2015, cementing his standing as a top-tier competitor in the region. He also won the Syracuse 200 Modified race four times, one of the most prestigious events in northeastern dirt modified racing. By the end of the 2017 season, Friesen had won over 230 career dirt races spanning modified and sprint car disciplines.
Friesen made his NASCAR debut in the 2016 Aspen Dental Eldora Dirt Derby, driving the No. 16 Halmar Racing truck. Contact with another competitor resulted in a 28th-place finish in his first appearance, but the performance was promising enough to lead to further opportunities. He ran five additional races that season, recording three top-twenty finishes.
In January 2017, Friesen announced a full-time 2017 season campaign with Halmar Friesen Racing (HFR) in the No. 52 truck. That year's Eldora race saw him qualify on the pole, lead more than half the laps, and win the second stage before losing the lead to Matt Crafton in the closing laps and finishing second. He ended the season fourteenth in championship points.
For 2018, HFR continued a technical alliance with GMS Racing. Friesen advanced to the playoff Round of 8 and finished seventh in the final standings, his career-best points result at that time. In 2019, a race at Kansas Speedway saw him lead both practices and both stages before running out of fuel with three laps to go, handing the win to Ross Chastain. He rebounded with his first career NASCAR truck victory at Eldora on August 1, 2019, then followed it with a second win at Phoenix on November 8, which was his first paved-track NASCAR victory. Those two wins qualified him for the Championship 4, where he ultimately finished fourth in the standings.
In 2020, Friesen missed the playoffs and famously skipped the Kansas truck race to instead compete in the Short Track Super Series at Port Royal Speedway, where he finished second in a $53,000-to-win event. He returned full-time in 2021 and made a one-off NASCAR Cup Series start at Bristol's dirt race, driving the No. 77 for Spire Motorsports.
Friesen scored his third career truck series win at Texas Motor Speedway in May 2022, ending a 54-race winless streak. In subsequent seasons he remained competitive but winless at the NASCAR level, finishing twelfth in the standings in both 2023 and 2024. He broke a 72-race drought in 2025 with a win at Michigan International Speedway. In April 2026, Friesen won his 100th career race at Fonda Speedway, a milestone that underlined his longevity in dirt racing alongside his NASCAR commitments.
Despite his growing NASCAR commitments, Friesen maintained a heavy schedule on New York and northeastern dirt tracks throughout his career. He competes part-time for HFR in the No. 44 car at local tracks in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and beyond. His presence on circuits such as Fonda Speedway and Utica-Rome Speedway remained consistent even as his national profile grew. Friesen competed frequently in the Super DIRTcar Series and the World of Outlaws sprint car series, demonstrating an unusual range across both modified and sprint car disciplines.
In July 2025, Friesen suffered a serious accident during a Super DIRTcar Series event at Autodrome Drummond in Quebec, sustaining a fractured pelvis and right leg. He was sidelined for the remainder of that NASCAR season, with Christopher Bell and Kaden Honeycutt filling in for him in the truck series.
Friesen is married to Jessica Friesen and the couple has one son. Alongside racing, they operate a t-shirt printing business called One-Zee Tees, originally conceived as a fallback if racing did not work out. The family lives in Sprakers, New York. Friesen and his wife also co-own Halmar Friesen Racing, the team that fields his NASCAR trucks.
Friesen occupies a distinctive position in American racing as one of the few active drivers capable of competing at a high level in both NASCAR and grassroots dirt racing simultaneously. His success in the Super DIRTcar Series and the consistent championship contention he demonstrated through his teens and twenties on the northeastern modified circuit marked him as a generational talent in that discipline. His 100th career win at Fonda Speedway in 2026 stands as a testament to his commitment to dirt racing even while maintaining a full-time national NASCAR schedule.