Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, plans to drop off the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series beginning this weekend, ending five-plus years as a circuit regular and his Best Performance Motorsports team’s even longer run as a national tour stalwart.

The 27-year-old Erb announced he will enter this weekend’s World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series-sanctioned Dairyland Showdown at Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wis., rather than the Lucas Oil tour's Kentucky doubleheader at Junction City’s Ponderosa Speedway and Union’s Florence Speedway. It will mark the first time he hasn’t entered a points event on the tour since the 2019 opener.

Currently ranked 11th in the Lucas Oil standings — 465 points behind leader Ricky Thornton Jr. — with a single victory among three top-five and eight top-10 finishes in 17 feature starts, Erb’s only concrete plans for the remainder of 2024 include the crown jewel races at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, and the 10-race Castrol FloRacing Night in America series. Beyond that, “then everything else is what we wake up that morning and decide to do,” said Erb, who was a WoO regular from 2016-18.

Erb said too many tracks on the Lucas Oil schedule don’t appeal to him, prompting his decision to shift to an independent schedule aside from the modest Castrol tour commitment.

“I tend to do better at places that I enjoy going to, so I feel like it’s a no-brainer,” Erb told FloRacing. “I feel like I’ve done it enough that I deserve to be able to pick-and-choose where I want to race. I’ve won races with the series and you learn a lot doing it, but that’s not how I like to race and what I like to do. I like to go where I enjoy it, or if I’m gonna be gone I can stay at people’s shop that I like hanging out with. All that plays a role in it.

“At the end of the day,” he added, “if you win more races, no matter what series you run or what you do, you’ll make more money.”

Erb has 20 career full-field victories on the Lucas Oil Series, all but one coming since he began driving for Eric Brock’s St. Marys, Ohio-based Best Performance Motorsports in 2019. He’s won as many as seven features in a single season (’21) and finished a career-high fourth in the standings in ’19; last year’s eighth-place points finish was the first time he placed worse than sixth.

Brock has fielded his Best Performance No. 1 on the Lucas Oil tour since going national with his team in 2016 with Brandon Sheppard. The car owner’s two-year stint with Josh Richards yielded a championship in ’17 and runner-up finish in ’18 and he owns 34 full-field series triumphs among Erb (19), Richards (13) and Sheppard (two).