Eldora Speedway
Maneuverable Terbo aims for better decisions
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Tyler Erb (51) just before heat contact with Ethan Dotson (74x). (joshjamesartwork.com)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 4) — Tyler Erb was the only driver in Thursday evening’s Dream XXXII prelim who could match Bobby Pierce’s rip-roaring pace from start to finish around Eldora Speedway.
That’s not by happenstance. The New Waverly, Texas, driver has honed in on becoming a more deliberate, calculated and multidimensional racer — proving there’s more to his game than throttle-mashing bravado or living and dying up on the cushion. | Complete Dream coverage
“I’ve been trying to make the right decisions,” Erb said following Thursday’s impressive 12th-to-second performance at Eldora where he rallied from the tail of his heat to transfer into the 50-lap main event following a spinout. “I feel like the last month, I've been making good decisions like throughout the night.”
On Thursday, a good decision meant using all of Eldora’s half-mile racing surface rather than falling into the trap of merely following Pierce around the top. For once, the 29-year-old Erb felt capable around the middle to bottom grooves at Eldora — a hallmark of Jonathan Davenport’s during his run of 11 crown jewel victories at the Big E.
“Like, (Bobby) does a really good job up on the wall like that. I feel like I can do that, too, but my car is never really any good away from that. Like, I'm there or nothing,” Erb said. “So, maybe I should have ran the top harder? I don't feel like I've ever really been that good in the middle of the racetrack like that. So I just was like, ‘Well, that's where I'm gonna run.’ Because I actually felt good there for once, you know what I mean?”
This kind of tactfulness is what Erb’s been cultivating over the last few weeks. After all, he put himself in position to receive a $100,000 windfall a week earlier at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway’s Blaster 57 Special on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series, where moments before the feature, the Niss family inconceivably upped the $12,000-to-win feature to six figures.
Erb, who started outside the front row, “drove the hardest I ever have” through the opening corner of that feature to make sure he was the one that jumped out to the lead from the outset.
From there, he navigated rough-and-tumble conditions masterfully, picking and choosing his spots wisely. Even while leading in the late going of the 40-lap feature, he inspected the bumpy Mansfield surface under caution, taking inventory of where the treacherous ruts lied.
“Through (turns) three and four under the cautions, I was like, ‘OK, where are the holes? I need to really not hit the holes and go from there,’ ” Erb said. “It’s a chess match. You go when you need to go. You slow down when you need to go.”
It amounted to Erb not making a single mistake, even with Brandon Overton applying relentless pressure. His May 29 victory at Mansfield — a day after he and girlfriend Emma announced they're expecting a baby boy — felt like validation for the maturation process of a driver whose antics have sometimes overshadowed his success.
“Obviously, I’m growing as a person. I’m about to have a kid,” Erb said. “I love Emma and the baby we’re going to have. This is like the next chapter in my life.”
Erb’s taken every lap seriously at Eldora this week, capitalizing on the well-rounded race machine his Best Performance Motorsports team has given him every change he gets.
One major upside is he has one of the best cars in heat race action this week. On Wednesday, after a lackluster qualifying run (and losing a time-trial lap because of a tech penalty), he moved up from ninth to fifth in the fourth heat, two spots short of a transfer. That enabled him to power from fourth to Wednesday’s second B-main victory.
On Thursday, after restarting 11th in the first heat, he powered his way back to the front, finishing fourth.
“Yeah, you gotta get through the heat on Saturday. That makes it way easier,” Erb said. “You don't want to be in the B-main, but if you are, we’re gonna go after it. Hopefully it all pans out.”
Between 132 competitive laps at Eldora this week — two heats, Wednesday’s B-main and two 50-lap features where he’s gone 20th-to-eighth and 12th-to-second — he’s gained 37 positions.
“I haven't won 20 f------ races, but I've been really fast and I feel really good,” Erb said. “I race against stinkin’ Bobby every night and they're really good. Nick (Hoffman) has just gotten way better. … I mean, to do better and win bigger races is kind of what I have to do. Things are looking good. Just gotta survive the heat race Saturday and get situated in this feature.
“We’re right there. I feel like in 100 laps, I can run every lane on the racetrack really good, so that’s something exciting. It’ll help us sleep good tonight and be ready, watch (Friday), and be ready for Saturday.”
Erb’s still had to right some controversy Thursday. His night was briefly hung in the balance when, in the heat race, contact with Ethan Dotson sent him spinning.
“We barely touched quarterpanel to quarterpanel and spun out,” Erb said. “I got spun. Like, I don't feel like it was any harm. … It was whatever.”
The bigger flashpoint came on the restart when Erb, restarting 11th, tangled with Benji Hicks, ending Hicks’s night and prompting the Mount Airy, N.C., driver to vent on Facebook that “Tyler Erb decided to total our car since he spun out by himself. … Our Dream is over. No worries, IOU bud.”
Erb rejected the notion that the contact was intentional, saying he simply took advantage of a window exiting turn four.
“He slid off of (turn) four or whatever and was kind of crossed up. So I was like, ‘Well, I'm going to drive underneath him,’ ” Erb said. “It's not like I was like, ‘You know what? Today I'm gonna murder Benji Hicks.’ I think people get that in their head and they really take it personal.”
While Erb said he “hated” the contact ultimately destroyed Hicks’s race car, he characterized it as a racing incident rather than anything malicious. Erb added that he harbors no ill will toward either Hicks or Dotson and believes “a lot of these guys have that problem and they take it personal.”
“I don't have a vendetta against Ethan Dotson because we touched and spun out,” Erb said. “He's not the worst person in the world. ... If (Hicks) thinks I have ill will towards him, he's crazy. I don't have any ill will for anyone here.”
Erb instead will focus on the rest of the weekend at Eldora, where he’s noticed a common thread among the track's crown jewel winners: a maneuverable race car. Riding the cushion for all 100 laps is rarely sustainable. The drivers still in contention late are typically those with versatility to navigate traffic, dirty air and ever-changing track conditions. So far, Erb appears to have exactly that.
“I’ve been coming here 13 years now, which is hard to believe,” Erb said. “Out of however many of those 13 years, 12 of them weren't won blowing the deck out on this thing. So you just gotta know that coming into it, and try to make your car good enough to where you don't have to do that.”
More importantly, Erb has positioned himself exactly where he wants to be entering Saturday. His 482 preliminary points rank third overall behind only Bobby Pierce and Devin Moran, putting him squarely in the conversation as a bonafide contender heading into the $100,000-to-win finale.
“I feel like I've been close enough that I should be able to win here eventually,” Erb said. “And, yeah, things are looking really good right now.”
