NEW RICHMOND, Wis. — Tyler Erb has a colorful history at Cedar Lake Speedway, one that now includes a victory.
“Terbo” has been a regular at the USA Nationals since 2016, scoring a best finish in the main event of third in 2022. But his most infamous moment had nothing to do with his results, as Cedar Lake was the site of his on-track retaliation incident against Bobby Pierce in 2020 that resulted in a suspension.
Six years later, Erb is doing his best to put his bad boy days behind him. He’s now engaged to fiancée Emma Hodge with a baby on the way, and he approaches his racing career with a renewed sense of maturity and discipline.
That growth has led to some gains in the win column in recent years, and he’s now up to three in 2026 with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision after his Cedar Lake win on Thursday night.
“I haven’t ran good here since I got police escorted out,” Erb said. “I mean, I have ran good here before, just had one bad weekend and I feel like I’ve paid for it every time I’ve come here since. Last week, felt like we had a really good car all week at Fairbury [Speedway]. When it doesn’t work out, it’s really hard for me to just not lose my mind and go postal. I’m working on that, and tonight’s just a testament to that.”
History will show a wire-to-wire performance for Erb in the 30-lap feature, but his path to the win included plenty of challenges. The biggest one came from Hudson O’Neal, who worked his way from fifth in the starting order to second in time for a Lap 8 restart.
O’Neal briefly got alongside Erb in Turn 2 after going back green, but Erb had enough momentum around the top to drive away down the backstretch.
Erb hadn’t seen the last of O’Neal, because the No. 71 remained right behind Erb for most of the race. While both drivers agreed on running the bottom through Turns 3 and 4, the other end of the track was where O’Neal tried over and over to get the lead.
Erb and O’Neal both entered low, but Erb then drifted toward the wall through the middle of the corner, opening the door for O’Neal to stay low and try to slide up in front on the exit of Turn 2. O’Neal never found enough speed around the inside to get clear, allowing Erb to hold the lead as the laps clicked by.
One final restart on Lap 23 brought Brandon Sheppard into the picture, and he rallied around the cushion to take second from O’Neal, but he was unable to track down Erb before he took the checkers to claim his first Cedar Lake win.
“This track changes so much,” Erb said. “When I was following cars, it was in dirty air, I was like, ‘I need to move down at some point, someone’s going to drive by me.’ I could see Hud kind of half slide me there. I saw Shepp got to second on the board, and I was like, ‘Well I’ll be damned, here we go.”
Sheppard made up the second half of a Rocket Chassis 1-2 ahead of O’Neal in third. Nick Hoffman and Devin Moran completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 1-Tyler Erb[1]; 2. 1S-Brandon Sheppard[6]; 3. 71-Hudson O’Neal[5]; 4. 9-Nick Hoffman[9]; 5. 99-Devin Moran[4]; 6. 14-Trey Mills[15]; 7. 49-Jake Timm[10]; 8. 9M-Tim McCreadie[14]; 9. 97-Cody Overton[12]; 10. 96-Tanner English[19]; 11. 19R-Ryan Gustin[22]; 12. 32-Bobby Pierce[13]; 13. 16-Tyler Bruening[17]; 14. 0-Jake O’Neil[3]; 15. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[11]; 16. 25-Jason Feger[20]; 17. 74X-Ethan Dotson[2]; 18. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[25]; 19. 3S-Brian Shirley[8]; 20. B1-Brent Larson[26]; 21. 22*-Zack Mitchell[23]; 22. 60-Dan Ebert[7]; 23. 58V-Daulton Wilson[24]; 24. 09-Michael Leach[21]; 25. 19-Dustin Sorensen[16]; 26. 13-Dallon Murty[18]
