BARBERVILLE, Fla. — Tyler Erb knew that his first full season on tour with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision would be a roller coaster ride.
What he didn’t expect was a month’s worth of highs and lows packed into one weekend.
The first race night of DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals at Volusia Speedway Park on Thursday got off to a fairly uneventful start. Erb’s qualifying lap placed him fourth on the grid in his heat, and he was running third when things went sideways – literally.
Out of nowhere, the Best Performance Motorsports No. 1 shot left exiting Turn 4 and made a beeline for the inside wall.
With his primary car destroyed, there was a moment when “Terbo” considered calling it a night and turning his focus to getting the backup car ready for Friday’s action. But several of his fellow competitors in the pit area had other ideas.
“I still don’t even know what happened for it to wreck,” Erb said. “Just turned left and obviously it junked that car. My guys did a great job, got [the backup car] out. Ethan Dotson came and helped, Drake Troutman, Clay Harris, they were unloading it before I was even really ready to do it. I was almost like, ‘I’ll call it off for the day.’ But they got it out, which kind of helped push us, like, ‘OK, we’ll see what happens here.”
The choice to push forward proved to be the right one come feature time. After taking a provisional to start 26th, Erb wasted no time charging through the field. He needed 12 laps to crack the top 15, and a late restart gave him the chance to pass a few more cars and salvage an eighth-place finish to start what he hopes is a championship bid.
“Ran really good in the feature from starting dead last,” Erb said. “It was a big day. You know, you don’t want to start the year out with something like that, but we persevered and made the most of it.”
Not only did that performance prevent Erb from starting the season behind the eight ball, it also showed that the car he’d be running the rest of Sunshine Nationals with was equally as capable as the primary. That remained true early in Friday’s program, as Erb qualified on the pole of his heat and won it wire-to-wire.
He drew the fourth spot in the feature and soon made his way up to second behind the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 of Hudson O’Neal. There were points when it looked like Erb would complete the recovery with his first win on the second night of the year, particularly on the final lap when he briefly made it side-by-side for the lead off Turn 2.
O’Neal was ultimately out of reach on that night, but Erb’s runner-up effort let the world know he isn’t one to stay down for long.
“I fired off, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m in trouble.’ But as the race went on, I just got better and better,” Erb recalled from Friday’s feature. “In hindsight, I feel like I should have moved down in [Turns] 1 and 2 sooner because I slid [Brandon] Sheppard. On the restarts, I could slide them and make so much speed into the center. I just never thought to actually slow down and try to run the middle or bottom, because Hudson was setting such a good pace. The last three or four laps, I was actually like, ‘OK, I’m going to run the middle, bottom. I’m never going to catch him on the top of [Turns] 1 and 2.’ I just started doing it, and we were actually making gains in [Turns] 3 and 4, I feel like I was a little bit better.”
In Saturday’s finale, early-night struggles relegated Erb to a Last Chance Showdown, and he was only able to climb to 16th in the main event. However, the points damage could be minimized by the format that only counts a driver’s five best finishes in the eight winter races at Volusia Speedway Park and Hendry County Motorsports Park toward the season-long standings.
Erb is confident that the speed necessary to win World of Outlaws races is there, and he already has his eyes on Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals as his next chance to finish the job.
“Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve,” Erb said. “All in all, it was a great run. Definitely excited to race again.”
