Area dirt-late-model standout Dennis Erb, Jr.  captured this year’s United Midwestern Promoters DIRTcar Summernationals championship, grabbing four victories during the grueling 25-race schedule and taking home $25,000 for his title efforts.      
The 34-year-old, second-generation speedster scored four wins out of the first 10 Summernationals contests held. The Carpentersville resident kicked off the annual midsummer late-model tour by winning the opening race at Kankakee Motor Speedway on June 15, pocketing $10,000 for his efforts in the 40 lapper.  The following night at the Kamp Motor Speedway in Boswell, Ind., Erb again won a $10,000-to-win 40-lap chase. 
Highland Speedway was the scene of another Erb victory on June 20, which gave Erb three wins during the first six UMP Summernationals battles.  Another Illinois dirt track — Peoria Speedway — saw Erb score his fourth and final Summernationals victory June 25.  Erb was now 4-for-10.
Erb battled Tennessee driver Mike Marlar and Indiana’s Don O’Neal most of the way for the title, with the final races seeing Erb and O’Neal square off against each other.  Former two-time Summernationals titlist Shannon Babb of Moweaqua, Ill., joined the tour late, but still won four features during this year’s action.
“Early in the year, I set my mind to go and win this Summernationals deal,” Erb said.  “I felt like after running it all these years, I knew what it would take to win it.”
Erb posted some strong numbers during the campaign as far as finishes go. In addition to his four victories, Erb had 14 top-five finishes and 23 top-10 finishes. A 14th-place finish during a mid-June visit to Jefferson County Raceway in Mount Vernon, Ill., was his worst performance. 
 “I was fortunate to be able to have good runs for the whole month,” Erb said. “I won the most I ever have in a (single) year on the Summernationals (tour), and we finished every night.”
Prior to the Summernationals schedule, Erb’s confidence got a boost as he nailed down a couple of World of Outlaws Late Model Series victories.
 “It was a real good spring for us,” he said. “Our car was working real well, and the couple Outlaws wins we got built up a lot of confidence for us coming into this deal.”
C.J. Rayburn Race Cars put together the winning chassis for Erb, with Malcuit Racing Engines supplying the horsepower. Sponsorship help came from Thomason Transportation, Petroff Towing and J&J Steel. 
Erb’s biggest scare during the tour came on June 30 at Clarksville (Tenn.) Speedway. While unloading his No. 28 race cars from his transporter, one of them rolled off the back of his trailer’s lift gate and landed atop his other racer that was already sitting on the ground below.  Luckily, a little cosmetic damage to the cars was the worst part. Erb went on to score a fifth-place finish in one of the “wrinkled” cars that night.
Wrapping up the title was a bit anticlimactic for Erb, as he and rival O’Neal decided not to compete in the final race of the tour at Ohio’s Oakshade Raceway on July 14. A heavy downpour of rain hit the speedway after time trials were completed, causing a nearly five-hour track-drying delay.  Erb opted to forego racing into the wee hours on a heavy surface. Erb and O’Neal agreed on not racing and loaded up their cars.
 “We don’t want to do something like this, but it’s not the way we want to decide the championship,” Erb said at the time. 
This year’s Summernationals series saw competition in seven states, with Illinois tracks hosting 14 events.
A total of 384 different drivers entered at least one of the 25 Summernationals point races. Eight teams entered all 25 events, with 11 different drivers scoring main-event victories. Trailing Erb and O’Neal in the final standings were Illinois driver Wes Steidinger, Michigan’s Jeep VanWormer and Marlar and Illinois’s Steve Sheppard, Jr., who were tied for fifth.