SUMNER, Ill. — Since Red Hill Raceway reopened its doors to the DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models in 2022, it has only known one winner – Tyler Erb.
The Texas native claimed his seventh Hell Tour feature win of the season, and first of Week 3, Sunday night at Red Hill.
Erb took the lead from polesitter Dillon McCowan on lap eight and held off a hard-charging Jason Feger to claim back-to-back Hell Tour wins at Red Hill. With the win, Erb has now won half of the races on the Summer Nationals schedule.
Did he think he would be this successful when he decided to run the first three weeks?
“In my dream yeah, but it doesn’t always work out like that,” Erb said. “Had a lot of fun and that’s about as good as it could’ve went. Like anything else there was a couple of bad nights and bumps on the road, but we were in contention to win more than not so that’s really all you can ask for.”
At the drop of the green flag, McCowan got the jump on Erb and was setting the pace around the three-eighths-mile oval and then a caution occurred on lap eight. McCowan led the first lap after the restart, but the next lap Erb swung his car to the high side going into turns one and two and zoomed past McCowan on the backstretch to seal the pass.
In the meantime, Jason Feger was making a hard charge to the front of the field after starting 10th. By lap 10, Feger had already made his way to second using the momentum of the high side to get by McCowan coming out of turn four to take the runner-up spot.
Coming into the race at Red Hill, Feger had an eight-point lead on Erb for the Week 3 points title, so it was fitting that the two battled for the top spot in the week’s finale.
While Erb led the rest of the way, Feger edged in front of Erb a few times, but Erb never let him get by.
“I seen [Feger] next to me twice,” Erb said. “I just tried not to overdrive and do nothing stupid. It’s real easy to drive with emotion and that is never the way to race.”
Feger finished second, which was enough to hold on to the Week 3 championship, concluding an intense battle he and Erb had all week for the $10,000 championship.
“Me and [Feger] had a good race,” Erb said. “We both agree it’s really been good for us and this whole deal that we’ve had our battles. He’s won races, I’ve won races and at the end of the day we’re just making each other better and that’s all you can ask for is competition.”
“It’s been fun,” Feger said. “[Erb] is a hell of a driver, and you know he’s going to bring you everything he has. It just makes you work harder and have to do better.”
With Feger claiming the Week 3 title, he has now won back-to-back weekly points championships. It’s been a battle of attrition for Feger though as he felt frustrated during Week 1 when he saw Erb win all three races to take the Week 1 crown jewel.
“We were really mad the first week because we knew what we were capable of,” Feger said. “We kept searching, we found some stuff and found the speed so I feel like we’re at least back to where we need to be and that we can compete and show what we got.”
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 1-Tyler Erb[2]; 2. 25-Jason Feger[10]; 3. 8-Dillon McCowan[1]; 4. 58-Tyler Clem[8]; 5. 96-Tanner English[4]; 6. 14M-Morgan Bagley[5]; 7. 12-Ashton Winger[3]; 8. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[6]; 9. 15-Clayton Stuckey[15]; 10. 28-Carson Brown[7]; 11. 17-Lee Williams[9]; 12. 16-Rusty Griffaw[16]; 13. 24B-Jared Bailey[14]; 14. 38-Thomas Hunziker[17]; 15. 75-Daniel Adam[12]; 16. 4D-Doug Tye[13]; 17. 30-Mark Voigt[11]