Farmer City Raceway
Erb chills out, salvages rough Illini 100 weekend
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Tyler Erb at Farmer City. (joshjamesartwork.com)
FARMER CITY, Ill. (April 11) — It was hard to imagine Tyler Erb’s Illini 100 weekend getting worse.
After all, Friday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series action started Friday with his midpack struggles in Farmer City Raceway’s opening 40-lapper amid a contact-filled, back-and-forth battle with Brent Larson that left Erb’s car twice pointing in the wrong direction. The New Waverly, Texas, driver finished 10th.
Saturday appeared promising when the Best Performance Motorsports driver time-trialed fast enough to grab the pole of the fourth heat race. Soon enough, though, Erb’s No. 1 was facing the wrong direction again after first-lap contact exiting turn two with fellow front-row starter Tristan Chamberlain.
After working through his anger and frustration — WoO official Matty Watkins and then series director Steve Francis obliged him with discussions at the series trailer — a livid Erb had a choice. Waste the night or make the most of a bad situation.
“I had to chill out,” Erb said.
Bringing his chill attitude to the track for his 24th starting spot as a provisional, Erb — with the benefit of just one stoppage in the 60-lapper — rallied for a fifth-place finish in the $25,000-to-win race captured by Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill.
Erb advanced four positions on the first lap, broke into the top 10 by lap 40, and gave fourth-place finisher Daulton Wilson all he could handle in the final laps.
It wasn’t exactly forgive and forget — the loquacious Erb still had invective for Chamberlain (and Larson, for that matter) — but he grudgingly admitted the fifth-place finish (“it’s better than sixth”) was a satisfying outcome.
“I look at racing different than a lot of (racers),” Erb said. “If I’m not going to win, and I run fifth, I’m not like, ‘Hurray!’ You know what I mean? Like, I’m happy with the race tonight. Really, everything coming full circle, that’s about as good as I can do. I mean, what else can I do?”
He could’ve thrown the night away altogether, but the 29-year-old driver who's had notable on-track clashes during his career, including a January showdown with Jonathan Davenport at Central Arizona Raceway, notched his fifth top-five of his winless WoO season.
Watkins, who before talking to Erb in the pits had an animated helmet-to-helmet meeting in turn three immediately after Erb’s heat spin, and Francis understood Erb’s frustration. They kept their conversations private, but Francis said this after Erb zipped away on his mini bike: “You can’t make a judgment call.”
"I was mad,” Erb said later, “but like, how could you not be mad? What did this race pay, $20- or $25,000? I don’t know, whatever it paid. You have to win a heat. You have to run first or second (in the heat) at least to even have a chance.”
Erb told both WoO officials that part of his anger was that he was spun by a driver he doesn’t consider competitive enough to win a series event.
“Maybe I slid across his nose, maybe I didn’t, but like, (Chamberlain should’ve) hit the brakes, lap one. Run first or second and put yourself in the redraw. Don’t take me out of it,” Erb said.
The 18-year-old Chamberlain, who has two top-five finishes in three tour seasons in his No. 20tc Gibson Racing entry, didn’t take blame for the contact.
“We were side-by-side going down the straightaway and I guess he thought he could clear me getting into the corner, but I was staying in it wide open,” Chamberlain said. “We just came together barely and I just kind of clipped him into the quarterpanel and he went around.
“I think it was more of a racing deal. I don’t know if he knew I didn’t have that good of a run or what, but we just came together.”
Erb and Chamberlain never discussed the incident on Saturday, and Erb didn’t get any satisfaction from Francis. Erb said the series director told him, “I’m gonna get in trouble. Don’t do anything stupid, blah blah blah. And he’s right.”
Erb added that officials told him that ‘Oh, you’ve gotta race with these guys all year,’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t care.’ Like do they not realize they have to race with me all year, too?”
Regardless of his complaints, Erb knows “you just have to take your L and then I had to start in the back.” Putting his anger behind him, he salvaged the night as the race’s hard charger.
“I got fired off and I was just picking them off,” Erb said, intimating he’d have appreciated more slowdowns than the single red flag on the 49th lap for a turn-four pileup that saw Brian Shirley’s car end up on its side in a tangle that included Chamberlain. “I mean, in hindsight, we had what, one caution, a red? Who caused the red? The 20tc. Hot damn.
“So I didn’t have to wreck any cars. But like, I get one caution and pass 19 cars. It’s just my car is, it’s been fast. I keep saying that it’s really fast. I just haven’t won this year yet. It’s just aggravating.
“Last night I didn’t do everything right, so I can’t be mad that I’m wrecking with (Larson) and run 10th, but tonight, I qualify, I’m one of the last cars to go out, qualify on the pole of the heat. I don’t even make it out of turn two.”
Erb, whose lone victory of 2026 came in a February split-field semifeature at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., stands fifth in WoO points, but points don’t interest him. He’s looking for his first national touring victory since last May’s WoO triumph at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wis., one of the tour’s upcoming venues. His focus?
“The same approach as always,” Erb said. “Try to win the most races.”
