NEW RICHMOND, Wis. — Dennis Erb Jr. feels right at home with the upcoming World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models events.
The 2022 series champion, from Carpentersville, Ill., is seeking his first series win this season with prime opportunities ahead of him at Cedar Lake Speedway’s crown jewel USA Nationals and a trio of Midwest tracks — Highland Speedway, Spoon River Speedway and Maquoketa Speedway.
Though Erb has not visited victory lane in the USA Nationals, he finished fourth in the 100-lap, $50,000-to-win feature last year and has four top-fives and 11 top-10 finishes in his time with the series at Cedar Lake.
“We just gotta take it one race at a time now,” Erb said. “We just gotta keep the concentration towards Cedar Lake, I always enjoy going up there and racing with a lot of tough guys out there. I’ve had some success there and would really like to get a USA Nationals win. We’ll keep our heads down and work hard at it.
“It’s an exciting event. There’s a lot of people out there. A lot of fans want to come down and chat with you and everything is great. It’s just like (the Prairie Dirt Classic), with a lot of fans but they’re more spread out around the track. It’s energizing, the track is fun to race on, so we’d like to put on a good run in front of them.”
A couple of weeks later, Erb will be back home in Illinois, racing at two “Prairie State” tracks that will be new for the series but not for him. First is Highland Speedway on Wednesday, Aug. 14, and then Spoon River Speedway on Thursday, Aug. 15.
Erb won at Highland with the DIRTcar Summer Nationals in 2007 en route to his first Hell Tour championship. He also bagged three wins at Spoon River Speedway – the most recent coming in 2023.
“You definitely want to feel at home when you race and I can get that at those places,” Erb said. “Each week, it gets tougher and tougher, no matter how much experience you’ve had at these places. It helps to know what to expect and have some wins previously at (Highland and Spoon River). The tracks are pretty quick to get around, they’re hometown places for me a bit, but you still have to be on top of things. The group that we’re racing with, you can’t take anything for granted.”
The two Illinois stops will lead into the World of Outlaws’ debut at Iowa’s Maquoketa Speedway for the Hawkeye 100, Friday-Saturday, Aug. 16-17.
Sitting eighth in the World of Outlaws CASE Late Models entering the Wisconsin weekend at Cedar Lake Speedway, Erb saw improvements through July with five top-10 finishes in the last seven races.
“We’ve been running much better, but we’re not where we need to be just yet,” Erb said. “That’s the main focus as we get towards the end of the season. We’ll keep making the adjustments needed to the car. Hopefully, we can finish off the year with getting some wins under our belt. That’s what we need, and we’ll work towards that goal in any way we can.
The 37th annual USA Nationals runs Aug. 1-3 at Cedar Lake Speedway.