Drake Troutman proves he can hang with the big boys during Firecracker weekend at Lernerville

Drake Troutman and his group of young helpers are teens living out a dream.

Troutman, 19, has been going up and down the road following the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model tour with a crew of kids the same age or younger than him, and there have been some humbling experiences.

That’s understandable for a young, up-and-coming racer who’s racing against some of the best in the business, but Friday night he had a breakthrough.

Troutman won his first Lucas race, a 25-lap, $5,000-to-win preliminary feature in the Firecracker weekend at Lernerville Speedway in Buffalo Township.

Now he’ll look to keep the momentum rolling into Saturday’s $50,000-to-win Firecracker 100.

Troutman held off a charge from two-time Firecracker 100 winner Tim McCreadie on a late-race restart to secure an emotional victory.

“It was pretty incredible (when) I saw the 1 up on the board, and I was pretty certain we were going to end up running second because McCreadie is one of the best there is. It’s a pretty surreal moment because it’s what we’ve been working for since we started this deal.”

Troutman shed some tears in victory lane for several reasons.

One was because he’s carrying out the vision of his late father, D.J, who died of covid in August 2021. And Drake is doing so with a crew of all teenagers.

He has one full-time crewman, Hunter Cornell, who’s also 19, and a couple of other friends help when they can.

“We all went to school together,” Troutman said. “I have one that works full time for me, and the other two helping me out this weekend are so young. One’s 17, and the other’s 14. We’ve been getting our butts kicked going up and down the road for quite a while this year, so to see something like this pay off is awesome. I’m proud of these guys because they’ve been hustling and trying to learn as much as possible every day. They definitely have the itch to work for it.”

Troutman dedicated Friday’s win to his dad, who helped him get started in auto racing.

He’s a third-generation racer from Hyndman, a small town in the southern part of Bedford County. His grandfather, Dave, raced and so did D.J. Both had successful careers.

Troutman followed in their footsteps and quickly became a force in the UMP dirt modified division before getting into a super late model.

This year, Troutman made the leap to racing on the Lucas Tour for the first time. Coming into this weekend’s races, he’s 14th in series points and second in the Rookie of the Year battle behind Florida native Clay Harris.

Getting to race against championship-caliber competition such as Jonathan Davenport, Ricky Thornton Jr. and McCreadie has provided valuable experience.

“It’s really cool to get to race these guys,” Troutman said. “You learn so much following them around. It helps. You definitely don’t want to be behind them, but that’s usually the way it goes.”

Troutman proved he can run with the best Friday, and he hoped to do the same Saturday. The win set him up well for a starting spot in a heat race to try to transfer directly into Saturday’s main event.

“If we can pull off a top five on Saturday, that’ll finish off a great weekend for us,” Troutman said. “Financially that can really keep us going. The car was really good. I could run both the top and the bottom pretty well. We’ll probably tighten (the car) up just a tad.

“The confidence is certainly up this weekend for the first time in a long time. You never want to get cocky by any means, but you want to have confidence that your stuff is good and you can trust your car. It all goes together.”