Tyler Erb appears to be at the forefront of a Rocket resurgence
It wasn’t so long ago that it looked as if Longhorn Chassis was going to win everything in sight as far as the Dirt Late Model racing world was concerned in 2023. The North Carolina race car builder made a clean sweep of the six races held at New Mexico’s Vado Speedway Park in the Wild West Shootout. Two consecutive January wins in the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Late Model Series-sanctioned races in Barberville, Florida at Volusia Speedway Park only served to add to the success of the “Horns Up” outfit.
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series portion of Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks opened with six consecutive Longhorn victories at Golden Isles Speedway, Bubba Raceway Park and All-Tech Raceway. Now, however, Rocket Chassis appears to have answered the challenge.
But since the Lucas Oil tour made its way to East Bay Raceway Park in Ellisville, Florida, Rocket has made a monopoly of victory lane. After stringing together a pair of top-5 runs, the suddenly hot Tyler Erb took the checkered flag ahead of the pack on Monday night for the Shinnston, West Virginia-based brand to get the ball rolling in their direction.
The Mark Richards and Steve Baker-owned chassis builder then saw Ashton Winger and Ryan Gustin score breakthrough Lucas Oil triumphs on Tuesday and Wednesday nights respectively.
And it isn’t simply that Rockets are now winning features. Along with those wins have come other solid finishes. Both Monday night and Wednesday night at East Bay featured podium sweeps for XR1 machines. And while he has yet to win a main event, house car driver Hudson O’Neal has posted two runner-up finishes in his last three attempts for Rocket 1 Racing.
Three more races remain for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at East Bay then the action shifts across the Sunshine State to Volusia for six straight nights to close out Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks. It will be interesting to see if Rocket can keep the momentum up, if Longhorn can return to dominance, or if another brand can get into the mix.
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