MANSFIELD, Ohio — Tyler Erb was rolling onto the track preparing to go green when he received the most unforgettable one-way radio message of his career.
Moments before the start of Friday night’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series presented by DIRTVision feature at Mansfield Speedway, the Niss family, philanthropists local to the Mansfield community, offered up a generous donation that took the standard $12,000-to-win race and raised it to a staggering $100,000-to-win.
Before Erb had time to process the news, it was time to go to battle in what instantly became one of the highest-paying races on the calendar.
Some solid speed early in the night put “Terbo” in position to contend for the incredible payday from the second starting spot, and he did more than contend. On the opening lap, Erb rallied around the outside of Bilstein Pole Award winner Ricky Thornton Jr. and cleared him exiting Turn 4.
As the race progressed, Thornton started to fall back and eventually dropped out of contention with a flat tire. In his place, Brandon Overton emerged as Erb’s biggest threat, as “Big Sexy” was hungry for a six-figure payday to cure his well-documented struggles over the past two seasons. Several cautions gave Overton his opportunity to pounce, but he never had enough to deny Erb from the biggest payday of his career.
The New Waverly, Texas native is no stranger to success in his Late Model career, amassing five World of Outlaws victories, a championship and 21 race wins on the DIRTcar Summer Nationals trail and wins in multiple marquee events, including the Gateway Dirt Nationals and the National 100. But Erb had yet to join the elusive six-figure winners club until now.
It had already been a special week for Erb, as the day prior, he and girlfriend Emma Hodge announced the upcoming birth of their first child later this year. Thanks to his performance at Mansfield, the couple now has reasons to celebrate both on and off the race track.
“For $100,000, I kind of rethought my corner entry into [Turn] 1,” Erb said. “Just decided that, obviously you want to get the lead, that’s the most important thing in any race. You want to have the ability to lose the race and win the race. I took off into flight into [Turn] 1, which was no different than qualifying. Was able to gather it back up, and Ricky didn’t completely use me up there in [Turns] 3 and 4 and I appreciate that. After that, I was like, ‘I led Lap 1, 39 more laps and I’m a hundred thousand-aire.”
Overton came up short by a half-second for a runner-up finish, while Bobby Pierce climbed from 10th in the starting order to third at the checkered flag. Josh Rice scored the second World of Outlaws top five of his career in fourth, while Hudson O’Neal completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 1-Tyler Erb[2]; 2. 76-Brandon Overton[4]; 3. 32-Bobby Pierce[10]; 4. 11-Josh Rice[9]; 5. 71-Hudson O’Neal[11]; 6. 99-Devin Moran[13]; 7. 9-Nick Hoffman[6]; 8. 58-Garrett Alberson[7]; 9. 74X-Ethan Dotson[3]; 10. 1S-Brandon Sheppard[19]; 11. 9M-Tim McCreadie[15]; 12. 22*-Drake Troutman[8]; 13. 14-Trey Mills[25]; 14. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[14]; 15. 44-Chris Madden[5]; 16. 71R-Rod Conley[22]; 17. 19R-Ryan Gustin[23]; 18. 58V-Daulton Wilson[17]; 19. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[26]; 20. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[1]; 21. 22-Chris Ferguson[12]; 22. 17M-Dale McDowell[16]; 23. 19-Dustin Sorensen[24]; 24. 13-Dallon Murty[18]; 25. 1*-Kyle Moore[20]; 26. 111-Max Blair[21]
