Tyler Erb
Passion is defined as a strong feeling or emotion. To say that someone is passionate about something is to imply that the person cares deeply about a particular thing and may display emotion in the pursuit of the activity.
No one would doubt that Tyler Erb is passionate about Dirt Late Model racing. The talented New Waverly, TX racer often displays emotion in his pursuit of victories for the Best Performance Motorsports team. And the passion of the 24-year-old has in fact made him one of the top stars in the sport.
So where did that passion for everything he does come from?
“I don’t know,” Erb replied in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “Maybe it’s from being an only child and never having anyone to fight or compete with. I really don’t know. I just hate losing and sucking at anything I do. It’s probably just my parents beat it in to me that if you’re going to do something, do it to the best of your ability. I would say that’s probably the main thing, just the way I was raised. I don’t want to half-ass anything. If I’m going to do something, I want to be good at it and this is the only thing I seem to be good at.”
Erb doesn’t just show passion on the race track. Emotion has always been a part of his sporting life as well as every other thing he has ever chosen to do.
“I played baseball and football,” Erb explained of his youth. “I worked for my dad, and literally everything I did, I do a lot of construction work and stuff- just the simplest things I spend twenty or thirty minutes extra to make it nice and look good. I played baseball from the time I was five or six and my dad was never the one to be sitting on the side yelling at me but when we’d be driving home he’d get on me pretty hard saying ‘If you’re going to do something, don’t waste your time’. I figured I had a better shot at racing than anything else so that’s the route we went.”
There have been times in racing in which Erb’s emotion has gotten him into trouble. He is currently not allowed to participate in World of Outlaws sanctioned events because of incidents that have occurred in those races. The 2019 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rookie of the Year simply hates losing and much of his emotion is driven by the desire to win.
“Oh yeah, I got thrown out of some baseball games and got in trouble sports-wise because I don’t like to lose,” Erb pointed out. “I feel like I should have been born in the 1970s where I would fit in better. I’ve always been that way in everything I’ve ever done- school, racing, sports, work. I try to do the best at everything and if I’m not the best, I do whatever I can do to make myself better.”
Tyler Erb wheeling the Best Performance Rocket Chassis
However, Erb has, with the help of Best Performance crew chief Randall Edwards, learned that there are times when that emotion must be reined in.
“I’d say in the last three years I’ve gotten a little bit better at that,” Erb said. “Randall beats that into my head that you want to win every race but you’ve got to finish at some point. Sometimes it’s better to run sixth, seventh, or eighth than to crash when you know you can’t win. It’s something I’ve worked on to be better and make it a little more rewarding. You can’t win every night, but if you finish, you’ve got a better chance to win and that’s something we’ve definitely worked on as a team.”
So is this passionate driver who finished fifth in last year’s LOLMDS standings happy with where he is in his racing career?
“I’m happy, but I’m not content. Obviously, I’m not content in the sense that I want to do better. I want to win more races and a championship and things like that. But as far as our team and where I’m at in life, I’m happy and I’ve got every opportunity in the world and I’m trying to make the most of it.”
Erb and all the competitors on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will swing back into action this weekend with events at the Hagerstown(MD) Speedway on Saturday night and the Port Royal(PA) Speedway on Sunday evening.
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