YOUNG JOHN FREEMAN READY TO TACKLE BRISTOL’S HIGH BANKS

Some drivers wait all their lives to race at a place like Bristol Motor Speedway.  John Freeman is heading there just seven years after climbing behind the wheel of a racecar for the first time.  On top of that, he’s only a teenager.

Freeman will compete with nearly a hundred other racers when the UARA Late Model Stock Car Series visits the legendary half-mile, high-banked track this coming Saturday for the Food City 150.  At the end of the night, though, Freeman hopes to be standing well above the rest of the hundred racers in attendance.  He hopes to be standing in Bristol’s famed, elevated Victory Lane.

And thanks to the help of a very famous Bristol name, Freeman has a good shot at it.

“We got a chance to go to Bristol and test a couple of weeks ago with the help of Steve Wallace,” said the 18-year-old Freeman.  “We ran pretty well. We were a top-three to top-five car all day.  Steve was up there and helped me out a lot.

John gets some help from Steve Wallace (right) at his Bristol Motor Speedway test.

“The Wallace family tradition at the track is pretty well untouched by anyone else.  (Rusty Wallace leads all active NASCAR drivers in victories at Bristol.) I’m sure his dad has given him plenty of information about the place, so he just helped transfer some of that to me.  Having Steve there helped me a lot.  He taught me things like where to lift and where to brake and what to do in certain situations.  Without that test and without Steve there, we would have been chasing the driver all day instead of the car.  It is a big thing to know that I’m driving right when we get there come race time.”

Wallace will have a special interest in Freeman’s race on Saturday.  The #57 Freeman’s Stereo & Video / MTX Audio / Kenwood Dodge that Freeman is driving at Bristol is the same car that Wallace took to Victory Lane in the inaugural running of the UARA cars at Bristol in 2004.

The test wasn’t only helpful when it came to getting advice from Wallace, but also in getting track time at one of the most intimidating tracks in all of America.

“It is a crazy place,” said Freeman with a smile.  “It is a big deal just to drive up on it.  When you drive up over the hill, you see the frontstrech and it is crazy.  It is like a big coliseum.  I remember thinking ‘I’m going to fall out of this thing’ when I got out on the track for the first time.  I was thinking that there was no possible way the car was going to stick on this track.  It was tripping your mind out thinking that the car was going to stick to the track when you drove it off into there. 

“Any other track, you drive in high and you arc the corner.  There, you drive in the bottom and it sticks.  It just plays with your mind.  I think the fastest car might be the guy that is the smartest and the dumbest of everyone.  You have to learn to drive it off in there like there is no tomorrow.”

Freeman has been busy in 2005.  It is the biggest season thus far for the youngster, who made the jump from a successful career in Legends and Thunder Roadsters to Late Model Stock Cars.  Freeman, who has run semi-regularly at Concord Motorsport Park and a number of other tracks around the Carolinas, knows that his rookie year in stock cars will get no bigger than when he visits the Bristol Motor Speedway.

“This is just my rookie year in a Late Model and here I’m going to the biggest race there is,” added Freeman.  “That made going to Bristol and testing even more important.  We ran real fast up there with some of the best guys around.  I suppose when we get back there this weekend, there will be even more excitement.  It is going to be huge and I can hardly wait.”

If you would like more information on John Freeman and his future racing plans, contact Jeremy Troiano at (704) 726-6849 and stay tuned for the all-new JohnFreemanRacing.com coming soon.