If all goes as expected, dirt late model veteran Dennis Erb Jr. will soon celebrate two major milestones — his 50th birthday (Oct. 12) and his first national series championship (Nov. 5).
As a cool autumn breeze began to replace the dog days of summer, it appeared as if the second-generation racer from Carpentersville, Ill., and his low-budget, old-school race team were on the verge of securing the prestigious World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series championship.
“A national title is something I’ve always wanted to win,” Erb told SPEED SPORT. “We won the Summer Nationals stuff, and we won UMP titles and that, but to get out here and win the World of Outlaws title would definitely mean a lot. We will definitely cherish that, for sure, and then it will be business as usual getting ready for next year.”
Erb’s modest race team consists of only two people — himself and longtime crew chief Heather Lyne, who continues to work a full-time job as an electrical engineer for a defense contractor in addition to her racing responsibilities.
“You know, it’s just me and Heather doing this. Our team is very small compared to others. Our budget is very small compared to others. So there is a lot of hard work that goes into it each week for me and her,” Erb continued. “She takes care of the car and maintains it, and I work on the set-ups and that, and then go out there and drive it.
“Heather’s definitely a hard worker. She goes to every race with me. She comes down to the shop after her job and puts in hours down here to get ready to go racing. She’s definitely a big part of getting up and down the road and keeping the car together. She puts in a lot of hours and she’s able to move her time around to be able to go up and down the road and go to these races with me.”
Since moving to the nomadic World of Outlaws circuit in 2019, Erb has finished sixth, fourth and fourth in the series standings.
“This is my fourth season with the World of Outlaws. We switched and started running that deal a few years ago,” he said. “We liked how the schedule was and we liked the races we were going to.
“We’ve got everything in the right spot right now. We are comfortable with the car, knowing what changes to make at the different race tracks we go to. Going back to a lot of the race tracks, we’ve got a pretty good notebook. That’s the key, having that notebook and keeping all of our equipment fresh and up to date.
“Winning the championship is the goal I set out for at the beginning of the year,” Erb continued. “We’ve been doing really well the last few years in the series, and, like I said, we’ve been building up. Our finishes are showing it this year, our wins and everything.”
Erb was born into a racing family as his father, an auto mechanic by trade, was a winner at multiple dirt tracks near their northern Illinois home.
“I grew up going to the race track every weekend, local tracks, with my family. As I grew, I helped wash the car and get it ready to go to the race track the following weekend,” Erb recalled. “I did it all for many years until it was time for me to start racing.”
That time finally came in September 1990 at Santa Fe Speedway in Hinsdale, Ill.
“The first thing I stepped into was a late model. That’s all that we had. I was able to put together one of those,” Erb remembered. “When I first started, we raced around home. I started at Santa Fe Speedway, La Salle Speedway and Kankakee Speedway. We ran those tracks in the early years and I won the track championship at both La Salle and Kankakee Speedways in 1994.”
Erb lost his father and mentor in 1997.
“Growing up I was able to work on his car, do the maintenance and set-ups for him. He taught me everything to get started in this sport,” Erb said. “I also worked with my dad. He had an auto repair shop and I worked with him. We worked side by side up until he passed. Then, I went full-time racing after that.
“After my dad died, I got hooked up with C.J. Rayburn and we had a lot of good runs. He was a lot of help to keep me going in racing after my dad died. Back in that time, just like now, it was a lot of hard work, keeping things together. We were very good around home and had a lot of good runs. We won the Summer Nationals a few times and racked up a lot of wins during that time.”
Erb was named rookie of the year with the touring Hav-A-Tampa Series in 1999, and he spent the next decade running a true “outlaw” schedule before joining the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in 2013.
He’s been competing on dirt late model racing’s national stage ever since, and his biggest victory came in the 2016 edition of the Dirt Late Model Dream at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
“With my career, it’s been a lot of hard work to keep things going, to be able to do what I’m doing with the budget that I have, owning everything myself and having to make all of the decisions,” Erb noted. “It’s been hard over the years to keep things going. I never looked and said, ‘Hey, at 50 I still want to be competitive.’ I simply focused on every year along the way.
“I definitely plan to continue as long as I’m able go out and do this every week, and I’m still competitive. I’m hoping I’ve got some years ahead of me.”
Like most dirt racers, Erb’s list of hobbies is rather short.
“There’s not that much time to do anything. I’ve got hours and hours racked into this thing,” he said. “One thing I do enjoy when I get a chance is to go out to a lake or a river and do a little fishing, just get away from things. But there’s not much time for that, especially nowadays with the amount of races we have throughout the year. The season is so long. When we are done with the World Finals, it’s a month and half and we’re back at it again. This definitely takes up a lot of your time.”
And speaking of the Nov. 2-5 World of Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, that’s where Erb hopes to hoist the championship trophy.
“The World Finals is really tough. You’re there in November and pretty much everybody is there.” Erb said. “They’ve got a good field of cars, cars from different series and different areas all show up. The race track is challenging. It’s a tough deal and you have to be on top of your game, for sure.”