There was an incident in the B Main on Friday at Knoxville Raceway. Tyler Erb and Billy Moyer Sr got into each other, twice, maybe 3 times. The on-track action resulted in a pit lane altercation.
Friday night’s pit lane altercation resulted in series officials asking Billy Moyer Sr to leave the speedway. Part 1 and part 2 of the Moyer camp packed up and forfeited their starting position’s for the final night of the Late Model Nationals.
The Late Model Nationals main event went into a two hour rain delay on Saturday. I found Tyler Erb under the lift gate of his hauler, taking cover from the rain. So, I asked him to tell his side of the story.
What happened?
Tyler Erb
“We qualified good, then the invert penalizes you for the most part,” Tyler Erb talks about his weekend at the Lucas Oil Late Model Nationals.
“Everybody’s the same speed and it’s really hard to make up any points. You just get buried in the heat race. Luckily we were able to make it to the B Main, which gave us a chance to make the feature.”
“In the B Main, just trying to take care of my tires. I saw Moyer pull up underneath me there on the last lap. I just chopped him going into [turn] 1.”
“It didn’t hurt my feelings one bit because he knocked my fender off in the heat race coming out of turn 4 there. The 2nd lap of the heat race, he slid up and hit me. So, I chopped him.”
He wrecked himself
-Tyler Erb
“I went down the back straight-away. I felt him hit me once. We took the checkered. I had no idea he wrecked until I came back around. I mean, he wrecked himself. Anybody in the pits could see that. Obviously we don’t like each other.”
Did you speak to him after the incident?
“No. He’s never said three words to me. That guy’s wrecked me on four different occasions.”
“Last night, honestly, I was worried about racing the race. I wasn’t even trying to race that guy. He got over his head and wrecked himself. It wasn’t nothing more than that.
Pit Lane Altercation
All 6 of the B Main B Main transfers had to hurry. The A Main took place just minutes after the checkered flag in the B Main. So, Tyler Erb didn’t have much time to prepare. Needless to say, there wasn’t time for a pit road altercation.
But I was told there was an incident with a beer shower?
“People that associate with him came over here trying to start trouble that we didn’t have time for. You got 6 minutes in between each race. I mean, we didn’t have time to fight, which they acted like they wanted to do.”
It wasn’t a beer. I smelled it and tasted it
-Tyler Erb
“We put tires on and kept doing our own business. Just waiting in staging and they guy came over and threw a mixed drink. It wasn’t a beer. I smelled it and tasted it.”
Tyler Erb was sitting in the car when the mixed drink was tossed his direction. The person that dumped his drink on the car, threw it from 15 feet away. The drink just scattered all over the deck of the racecar. It didn’t really get on the driver. But Tyler Erb was able to reach over and sample a taste.
“It doesn’t bother me one bit. I’ve never tried to initiate anything like that with anybody. It was a racing deal that he didn’t get the good end of.”
“At the end of the day, he’s not here racing and I am. I didn’t lose any sleep about it, I can tell you that much. I slept great.”
Tyler Erb made the main event in the 2017 Late Model Nationals. Tire issues forced him to retire early.