Dennis Erb, Jr. enjoyed a “dream” season in 2007, winning both the UMP DIRTcar Racing Summernationals, as well as the UMP National dirt-late-model championship.
The Carpentersville resident, who turned 35 in October, captured 23 victories, winning at 10 different speedways in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. 
Erb, a second generation driver who grew up around Chicago area tracks watching his late father race, competed in 87 events during the past season, racking up 44 “top five” finishes. 
Highlighting triumphs were four $10,000-to-win shows at Charter (Wis.) Raceway Park, Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway, Indiana’s Kamp Motor Speedway and at his “home track” — Kankakee Motor Speedway.  Erb became the first driver in the history of UMP to win both the Summernationals crown and the overall UMP title in the same season.
Eddie Hoffman had an impressive year on paved tracks, locally and across the country. Hoffman won 18 features, grabbing nine of those during the weekly Friday night late-model action at the Grundy County Speedway in Morris. 
The 47-year-old veteran driver got things off on the right track last January by winning the SpeedFest 200 at the U.S.A. Int’l Speedway in Lakeland, Fla. Hoffman garnered four wins on the ASA Late Model Series Northern Division circuit and won four times at Illiana Motor Speedway (Schererville, Ind.), including winning the track’s annual Tony Bettenhausen Memorial for the fourth time in his career. 
“Wearing a couple of different hats” the past few years, Tom Smith was the late-model champ at Grundy in ’07. It was the first championship for Smith, who began his late model racing career in 1992.
Prior to the 2006 season, Smith took over the ownership and promotional reins of the Plymouth (Ind.) Speedway, making the Tinley Park resident a busy man during summer weekends.
Entering high school in the late summer, D.J. Werkmeister, son of Grundy late-model driver Rob Werkmeister, enjoyed a pretty successful rookie season, winning four-cylinder stock-car division championships on both pavement at Grundy and on dirt at LaSalle Speedway. 
The 14-year-old youngster won 21 main events between the two tracks.
Ricky Bilderback garnered a record seventh consecutive NASCAR late-model championship at Rockford Speedway. Bilderback bested another Rockford veteran, Jerry Gille, by a mere one point for the title.
Jeff Cannon, in his second full season of late-model action, won five feature races on his way to the late-model track title at Illiana, the area’s only half-mile paved oval. Winning the Mid American Sportsman championship at Grundy in ’06, John Senerchia put together the same winning performance at Illiana this past season.
Tommy Kroll claimed top honors in UMP modified action at the Kankakee fairgrounds oval during the track’s weekly dirt track competition. The veteran Kroll now has 12 career championships. Toby Howard was the I-Mod champion at Indiana’s Shadyhill Speedway, winning nine features. Mike Provenzano, son of long time Chicago dirt-track front runner John Provenzano, copped UMP late-model laurels at Kankakee this year. Ralph Markham was the late-model champ at LaSalle, while Gary Koehring was the top super-late-model driver at the Sycamore Speedway.
 The United Midget Auto Racing Ass’n saw David Gough capture his third UMARA “national” driving title.  Gough claimed six features during the season, which also saw UMARA crown Mario Clouser as the USAC/UMARA Ford Focus titlist and Nick Grommes as the association’s sportsman champ.
Splitting away entirely from UMARA this past year, the Illini Racing Series saw Lamont Critchett win two features on his way to winning the group’s overall (sportsman-style) midget championship. 
The season was not without sadness as a number of “old timers” passed away including Boyce Sparkman, Legs Whitcomb, Jim Para, Bob Perrine, Earl J. Hubert, Tony Saylor and Lou Fegers. 
Perhaps the saddest was the death of Nick Beinlich, who died at the age of 18.  A former mini Super Cup, Legends and go-kart racer, Beinlich had been doing some ASA racing and had also won a late model feature at Rockford in late June.