After the Checkers
Instant reaction, analysis of Terbo's WVMS victory
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Tyler Erb's burnouts after his WVMS victory. (Emily Schwanke/woolms.com)
MINERAL WELLS, W.Va. — Instant reaction and analysis from Saturday’s World of Outlaws Late Model Series Racefest Summer Championship at West Virginia Motor Speedway, a $30,000-to-win event captured by Tyler Erb (RaceWire):
SMARTER TERBO: Sure, starting from the front row made Tyler Erb’s path to victory that much easier Saturday at WVMS. But Terbo also drove another impressively smart race, tapping into the discipline he’s been so focused on exercising of late. While his competitors hurled hellacious sliders and ran each other ragged behind him, Erb settled into a groove a lane or so off the cushion nearly the whole way around the racetrack after snatching the lead from Brandon Sheppard on lap two. By doing so, he kept himself off the treacherous cushion while making it difficult for anyone behind him to pull the trigger on a slider. Fortunately for Erb, nobody was really in position to do so. Even when slider-happy Drake Troutman restarted second with five laps remaining, Erb’s strong launch gave him a sizable cushion entering turn one. As someone who’s been critical of how Erb has raced in the past, I’ve been impressed with the driver he’s become of late. He didn’t make any mistakes in his $100,000 Mansfield windfall, then had perhaps a top-three race car all week at Eldora until a wheel failure with 20 laps remaining in last Saturday’s Dream XXXII finale. Now he has his second WoO victory over the tour’s last four races. With 10 races in 16 days in the Midwest starting for the WoO tour beginning this Friday at 141 Speedway in Francis Creek, Wis., he's trending upward at the right time.
TRACK REVIEW: Although I never visited WVMS when it was the 5/8-mile, consider me pleased with the reconfigured layout. I will say, whoever measured it was quite generous in dubbing it a 3/8-mile, because there's no way the new-look WVMS and Muskingum County Speedway in Dresden, Ohio — a true 3/8-mile — are the same size. I'd peg it closer to a third-mile, with almost a quarter-mile feel when you're tip-toeing the bottom. Size debate aside, I thought it raced very well this weekend, thanks in large part to the work of veteran track-prep specialists Chad Bauman, Blade Kearns and Mackie Flood. None of the three live anywhere near Mineral Wells, yet they spent four long days — all them arriving Wednesday — shaping the surface into something special because they believe in the facility's potential. The first few races on the new configuration left plenty of work to be had, but this weekend felt like a genuine step forward. That's not to say the facility is a finished product. Parking and camping logistics still need to be ironed out before October's Dirt Track World Championship, and there are many other details, I’m sure, that will be refined with time. There's also a massive backstretch grandstand — I'm told it seats 5,000 spectators — that debuted this weekend. Combined with the vendor midway behind it, that area should become a major asset once everything is fully developed. But the foundation is there. Take Tyler Erb out of Saturday's feature, and the battle for second alone nearly produced a three-way photo finish, with Drake Troutman edging Hudson O'Neal by just 0.035 seconds while Bobby Pierce came 0.198 seconds behind Troutman. That's the kind of racing that suggests this place is headed in the right direction.
ROUGH PATCH: Ryan Gustin's difficult stretch continued with 19th- and 22nd-place finishes during World of Outlaws weekend at West Virginia Motor Speedway, giving the Marshalltown, Iowa, driver six consecutive finishes of 12th or worse. The slump is a stark contrast to the stretch that came before it, when Gustin rattled off six straight top-eight finishes, highlighted by his $40,000 Dairyland Showdown victory at Mississippi Thunder Speedway just last month. The recent downturn has dropped him from fourth to seventh in the series standings. If there's a silver lining, it's that the only direction to go is up.
GROUND LOST: Nick Hoffman is another driver likely eager to put West Virginia Motor Speedway behind him. Actually, Hoffman’s Tye Twarog Racing team was among the first to load up and leave the pits Saturday night. His ninth- and 12th-place finishes marked the first time since last August's North-South 100 prelims at Florence Speedway that he's posted back-to-back finishes of ninth or worse. The off weekend also dealt a blow to his WoO title prospects. After arriving just nine points behind Bobby Pierce, Hoffman now trails the points leader by 44. With Pierce continuing to pile up victories and click off top-fives at the very least, Hoffman can't afford many more weekends like this if he hopes to stay within striking distance of the championship.
LUCKY NO. 13?: It hardly feels like Hudson O'Neal is in a slump, but Saturday’s third-place finisher has now gone 13 features without a victory, matching his longest winless stretch from all of 2025. Last season, he snapped 13-race droughts twice — first from Jan. 28 at Georgia’s Needmore Speedway to April 11 at Missouri’s Lucas Oil Speedway, then from July 19's Silver Dollar Nationals until Aug. 31 at West Virginia’s Tyler County Speedway. That January victory at Needmore actually snapped a 13-race dry spell dating back to his Sept. 25, 2024, FloRacing Night in America triumph at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway. The last time O'Neal went longer than 13 races between victories came in 2024, when he won at Iowa’s Shelby County Speedway on July 16 — just his second week with SSI Motorsports — before finally breaking through again in a World 100 prelim Sept. 5 at Eldora Speedway.
STAT OF THE NIGHT: Tyler Erb scored his second World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory over the last four touring races, adding to his May 29 triumph and $100,000 windfall at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway. The last time Terbo won two national tour features in that short of a timespan? Four seasons ago in 2022 when he won two of three Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events that April 9 at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway and May 20 at 300 Raceway in Farley, Iowa.
