Drake Troutman seemingly didn’t have a minute to himself ahead of Friday’s Labor Day 55 Classic at Bedford Speedway.

Right before the drivers’ meeting, the 19-year-old hastily worked to make sure every nut and bolt had been buttoned up on his new No. 58v Viper-Big Frog Motorsports race machine as he tightened screws on the nosepiece with a battery-powered drill so its flushed across the race car’s body. | RaceWire

All the while, crew chief Mike Rey ripped away blue cellophane wrap still attached to some of the car’s underbody, the tell-tale sign that the shiny XR1.2 Rocket Chassis is indeed brand-new and fresh from Mark Richards’s Shinnston, W.Va.-based chassis business.

Once the drivers’ meeting concluded, a Bedford security guard and one of Troutman’s supporters donning one of his T-shirts stopped the Hyndman, Pa., driver who’s ever-popular at the fairgrounds half-mile. They wished him luck, of course.

Friday was indeed a busy night for Troutman, who debuted with the Florida-based team at his home track. Earlier this week, it was announced that Troutman would race select events the rest of 2024 with the Florida-based team owned by Augie Burttram, Shawn Martin and Lisa Martin.

Though it’s a part-time ride while he’s committed on closing out his Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series rookie season with his family team, Troutman’s ecstatic that this is first Dirt Late Model gig outside his own No. 7 operation.

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“It works out. I can save my stuff to be the best shape it can be for these Lucas races,” he said. “We can all race still. There’s a lot of really great people who came together to pull this off. I can’t thank those guys enough for what they’ve done for us.”

Unfortunately for Troutman, his new hot rod didn’t stay spotless for long Friday as an opening lap heat race wreck damaged his XR1.2 chassis. At first blush, Rey thought the team would need to return the car to Rocket Chassis for a re-clip, but upon further evaluation Saturday, the car only need a right-rear axle tube and new bumper mounts. Troutman still plans on racing Sept. 4-7’s events at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, the World 100 and Wednesday’s Castrol FloRacing Night in America event.

Should Friday’s mishap at the Bedford half-mile — simply a racing incident when Troutman and Jared Miley got bottled up from the second row going into the opening corner — set the team back, they still have plenty to look forward to: Sept. 12’s FloRacing Series event at Tennessee’s I-75 Speedway and Sept. 14’s XR Super Series race at Muskingum County Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio remain on the team’s schedule.

“I have to thank them, and Shawn and Lisa Martin and Augie, for everything and for giving me this opportunity,” Troutman said. “And Mike for working his ass off. Mark Richards, all them guys, they’ve helped us out getting this deal rolling and getting this car done for us in a hurry. It’s a cool deal for sure.”

Rey, the 54-year-old mechanic of Ocala, Fla., has had a major hand in Burttram’s race operation since 2008 and serves as Troutman’s crew chief in their newly-formed deal. Rey, along with Shawn Martin, pursued Troutman to fill the open seat of the merry-go-round No. 58v machine that’s been a seat for many drivers over the years, most recently Tyler Clem.

Troutman is “a good kid,” said Rey, who’s worked with Ross Bailes, Scott Bloomquist, Tanner English, Chris Ferguson, and Mike Marlar, among others. “He’s got good work ethic and drive, obviously. He’s just a good kid, you know what I mean? That’s the main thing. I like somebody who’s going to work as hard as I will. And Drake will. That was one of the main reasons.”

Rey met Troutman four years ago when the teenager made a name for himself at Volusia Speedway Park’s DIRTcar Nationals in Barberville, Fla. Their relationship deepened last summer on the DIRTcar Summer Nationals circuit as Rey crewed for Clem at the time while Troutman took his first crack at the popular minitour.

Troutman added that he and Rey “have a relationship built up that’ll make things really easy going into this deal.” Before the team ran into trouble Friday, Rey assembled the brand-new XR1.2 all in a week, from bare-frame to race-ready.

“He’s done a really good job,” Troutman said. “Even last night, we went up there yesterday, it was pretty friggin’ close to done. I mean, he had to put the wiring in it and everything. If people would’ve seen it yesterday when I first got there, a lot of people would’ve said, ‘There ain’t no way you guys are racing in it tomorrow.”

Because the team’s travels are nowhere close to its Florida shop, the No. 58v will be housed at Brian Daugherty’s race shop near Punxsutawney, Pa., that’s about 90 minutes from Troutman’s Hyndman, Pa., shop. Daugherty is a retail a supplier of Integra Shocks and someone Troutman “trusts to get things ready.”

For Troutman, the Viper-Big Frog entry consists of an entirely different chassis, engine and shock combination than what he’s accustomed with. On his family team, he’s used Longhorn Chassis, Jay Dickens Racing Engines and Bilstein Shocks. The No. 58v, meanwhile, employs Rocket Chassis, Durham Racing Engines and Integra Shocks.

Troutman emphasized that “this isn’t because I want to switch chassis by any means,” but rather “just the fact of these guys giving me the opportunity” because “they are kind of the first ones to give me an opportunity to drive for somebody.”

“I felt like I should take it and try it out,” added Troutman, who went on to say that “it's hard to tell” what the future brings.

Troutman did mention “I’ve been talking to a couple people about next year, potentially,” but that he doesn’t “really know what’s going to go on.”

“We might do this deal. I don’t know,” Troutman said. “Right now, we’re focused on this and our own stuff, and are going to go from there.”

“It’s hard to tell what the future will bring,” he added. “I don’t really know next year, let alone next week. I don’t know. I really like my Longhorn stuff. I love (Longhorn owner) Steve Arpin and all those guys.”

Eleventh in the Lucas Oil Series standings with less than two months remaining in the tour’s season, Troutman acknowledged it’s been a grind running his own race team as a teenager and competing at the sport’s highest level. But “this is exactly what I expected,” he said.

“I figured we were going to get our guts kicked in this year and that we were really going to struggle, and be taking provisionals and be in B-mains constantly,” Troutman said. “You know, I feel like I’ve exceeded my own expectations. I don’t know what other people expected out of us, but I feel like I exceeded my own expectations this year.”

Troutman currently leads Clay Harris by 115 points for the series Rookie of the Year and he’s even in a close race with Jonathan Davenport for Most Popular Driver.

“I cross it up as a good year,” Troutman said. “We’ve ran top-five, we’ve ran top-three, we got our first prelim win at Lernerville (Speedway on June 21 at the Firecracker 100 in Server, Pa.). I mean, the deal is tough. One night, you run good and confident going into the next night, then you take a provisional. You can’t let the highs get too high and the lows get too low. You have to keep on trucking along and do your job every day. It’s tough.”

What’s most beneficial for Troutman outside of him saving his family-owned equipment in non-Lucas Oil Series races is that he has a true crew chief in Rey, plus all the support around him from Burttram and the Martins.

When asked who takes on the crew chief role for his family team, Troutman couldn’t exactly keep a straight face.

“Well,” Troutman said as he started chuckling, “we don’t really have a crew chief. Hunter (Cornell, his 18-year-old friend) and I just work together because a lot of times, it’s just me and him. I make the setup calls. He’s really big into tires. He’s a really good tire guy. That helps me out a lot so I don’t have to mess with tires.”

Even after Friday’s mishap, Troutman’s confident he and his new team will be just fine. They were quickest in hot laps, if that shows anything, among Friday’s 40-car field, was eighth of 20 drivers in Group B time trials and started fourth in the fourth heat until the opening-lap heat race tangle that messed his car up.

But “I feel like everything has clicked together for us this year,” Troutman said, largely because “we’ve had a lot of sponsors keeping us going.”

“We’ve had some financially down times, and they’ve pulled us out of some ruts,” Troutman said. “I feel like when we’ve been down financially, we’re able to pull off something where we can run decent that keeps us going. It’s been tough as far as that goes, but I love it. And I plan on being around for a long time. We’ll see what happens.”