Same story, different racetrack for Tyler Erb.
The 27-year-old from New Waverly, TX, padded his stats with his sixth Feature win of the 39th annual DIRTcar Summer Nationals Saturday night at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55. The 10th Hell Tour victory of his career came after taking the lead from Jason Feger in the opening laps and leading the rest of the way to bank the $10,000 grand prize.
Erb said stacking these wins has given him a confidence boost which he believes has translated to more trips to Victory Lane.
“You say you have the same level of confidence but when you can actually do it and have the proof of it every night that definitely helps,” Erb said. “I feel like deep down, subliminally you feel like you actually can win and sometimes you can tell yourself and try to talk yourself into it, but you just know deep down you don’t got it. Right now, I feel like we do have it which is a good feeling.”
Although Erb has a confident mindset going into each race, he knows how to balance humility and confidence too.
“You don’t like know you’re gonna win but you have to have that mindset to even have a chance,” Erb said. “If you have any doubt that you can win, that’s never good because I’ve been on both sides of that fence and right now my confidence is really high.”
After winning his Heat Race, Erb redrew second and lined up on the outside of Feger for the start of the 40-lap main event. Feger got the jump at the drop of the green flag and led the first four circuits on the bottom around the 1/3-mile oval.
With Feger on the bottom of the track, Erb used the momentum of the high banking to keep pace with Feger. Then on Lap 4, Erb ran through the middle of the track through Turns 3 and 4 and beat Feger to the start/finish line to take the lead.
“We were like the same speed and I was like I gotta figure out how to get around, I can’t just follow him,” Erb said. “Just started pounding the top of [Turns] 1 and 2 a little bit harder, a little bit harder. Not putting myself out of the race but trying to find the edge and finding out how hard was too hard.”
Once Erb made the pass on Feger, he quickened his pace, opening a gap of over a full second on Feger until he hit lapped traffic. At one point, Erb got stuck behind lap cars that were three-wide which slowed Erb’s progress and allowed Feger to close the gap to less than a car length from Erb.
A caution came out on Lap 25 that cooled off the battle for the lead in lapped traffic. Erb got the jump on the restart with Feger close behind but as the laps wound down, Erb increased his lead with every circuit and drove away from the rest of the field for his third Summer Nationals victory of the week.
“In lapped traffic, it was getting kind of sketchy there,” Erb said. “Luckily, we had the caution. That was the second caution all week and it played into our favor. The other caution that happened that happened this week did not make me happy. This one made me happy.”
UP NEXT
Week 2 of the 39th DIRTcar Summer Nationals concludes Sunday, June 23 with a visit to Lincoln Speedway in Lincoln, IL, racing alongside the DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals.
Tickets will be on sale at the gate. If you can’t be there to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 1-Tyler Erb[2]; 2. 25F-Jason Feger[1]; 3. 10-Garrett Smith[3]; 4. 18-Shannon Babb[9]; 5. 96-Tanner English[5]; 6. 10K-Daryn Klein[7]; 7. 10J-Jordan Bauer[13]; 8. 58-Tyler Clem[17]; 9. 21-Billy Moyer Sr[18]; 10. 8-Dillon McCowan[4]; 11. 33-Kye Blight[10]; 12. 11H-Jeff Herzog[11]; 13. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr[19]; 14. 33F-Rickey Frankel[16]; 15. 11T-Trevor Gundaker[6]; 16. 52-Matt Bailey[8]; 17. 16-Rusty Griffaw[21]; 18. 22R-Will Roland[12]; 19. 50K-Kayden Clatt[14]; 20. 30-Mark Voigt[22]; 21. 44-Blaze Burwell[20]; 22. 6K-Michael Kloos[15]
Cole Falloway Gets First Career Summit Modified Win at I-55
After several seasons trying and coming so close, Cole Falloway finally broke through for his first career DIRTcar Summit Racing Equipment Modified Nationals Feature win Saturday night at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55.
The 21-year-old from Owensboro, KY, had been knocking on the door with three top-5 finishes in Hell Tour competition in 2023, and most recently, a third-place finish Thursday at Spoon River Speedway.
Falloway battled with Treb Jacoby – who was also looking for his first career Summit Modified win – for most of the race, swapping the top spot multiple times in the first half before Falloway put a slide job on Jacoby on Lap 20 to take the lead for good.
“I’ve been close a couple of times and never been able to get one,” Falloway said. “To finally get one and at Pevely. I’ve never ran really great here and it feels good to finally get one.”
Falloway and Jacoby lined up on the front row and Falloway took the lead on the opening lap using the bottom of the track. Jacoby then took the lead on Lap 5 around the top side before Falloway took it back once again a few circuits later.
Jacoby got the lead back again on the high banking and held it for several more laps, but Falloway never got further than car length behind. On Lap 19, Jacoby switched lines and dove to the bottom in Turns 3 and 4 while Falloway rode the middle groove and pulled slightly ahead of Jacoby for the lead.
Entering Turn 1 on Lap 20, Falloway sealed the pass as he dove to the bottom of Turn 1 and slid up in front of Jacoby coming out of Turn 2. Once he executed the slider on Jacoby, Falloway drove off, finishing over two seconds ahead of Jacoby.
“I was kind of watching the laps just to see how much time I had,” Falloway said. “[Jacoby] started trying to protect and protect and he was killing all his speed leaving in the corners. So I finally got in hard enough behind him where I could really diamond it and drive back up beside him and whenever I did, I committed to sliding in front of him.”
UP NEXT
Week 2 of the Summit Modified schedule concludes Sunday, June 23 with a visit to Lincoln Speedway in Lincoln, IL, racing alongside the DIRTcar Summer Nationals Late Models.
Tickets will be on sale at the gate. If you can’t be there to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 66-Cole Falloway[1]; 2. 111-Treb Jacoby[2]; 3. 18L-Michael Long[3]; 4. 99-Hunt Gossum[4]; 5. 14C-Rick Conoyer[6]; 6. 22-Josh Harris[5]; 7. 96M-Mike McKinney[8]; 8. 12L-Lucas Lee[7]; 9. 777-Trevor Neville[12]; 10. 58R-Ryan Hamilton[10]; 11. 9-Ken Schrader[16]; 12. 00Z-Steve Picou[11]; 13. 42-Clint Young[20]; 14. 67-Austin Seets[17]; 15. 72-Todd Neiheiser[13]; 16. 1A-Steve Meyer Jr[19]; 17. 25-Greg Belyea[9]; 18. 4G-Paul Schrempf Jr[15]; 19. 3L-Bill Larue[21]; 20. 14-Dalton Lane[18]; 21. 27-Michael Turner[22]; 22. 21-Randy Dickman[14]
DIRTcar Series PR
