SENOIA, Ga. — On a cool Fall night in Georgia, Senoia Raceway served up a great night of FloRacing Night in America action in a feature that saw three different leaders and a first-time series winner.

Muscling his way by mid-race leader Ryan Gustin at the start of the 47th lap, fifth-starting Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, led the rest of Friday’s 50-lap Peach Bowl opener at Senoia Raceway.

Erb led the final four laps and beat Gustin by 0.625 seconds for the $20,000 prelim, his first career FloRacing Night in America Series victory and 10th overall win of the season.

“(Ryan Gustin) was doing what I was doing, he was hugging the bottom of (turns) one and two and could move around. He was, honestly, probably a little bit more maneuverable there,” Erb said before later adding, “I got side-by-side down the front straightaway and I was like ‘Man, gimme just half a lane.’ I know I made it really tight there, but he’s an awesome racer. I’ve had a blast racing with him all year, so congrats to him.”

Erb chose the Texas Children’s Hospital to receive the $2,000 from the series’ Angel Donor.

From the pole position Hudson O’Neal led the first 26 laps before the sixth-starting Gustin took the lead. The Iowa racer led the next 21 circuits but couldn’t hold off the hard-charging Erb.

Erb took second from Kyle Bronson on lap 43 and quickly erased Gustin’s 1.337-second advantage before muscling his way by at the entrance of turn one at the start of lap 47. Erb’s right side made slight contact with Gustin, moving Gustin off the bottom line just enough to take control and pull away in the closing laps.

Gustin, who led 20 laps (27-46), settled for second. The 10th-starting Bronson nearly took the lead from Gustin with a lap-39 slide job attempt in turn three before Gustin executed a perfect crossover move to maintain control. Bronson prevailed to finish third after a back-and-forth battle with Devin Moran, dropping Moran to fourth on the final lap.

O’Neal faded to fifth at the checkered flag, but took the point lead by 3 markers over Brandon Sheppard heading into Saturday’s finale.

Bobby Pierce is 21 points removed from the top spot and still in contention for the championship, while Devin Moran is now 33 points out of the top spot in fourth and is mathematically removed from championship contention with only one race remaining.
The finish:

Feature (50 Laps): 1. 1T-Tyler Erb[5]; 2. 19R-Ryan Gustin[6]; 3. 40B-Kyle Bronson[10]; 4. 99-Devin Moran[2]; 5. 71-Hudson O’Neal[1]; 6. 60-Dan Ebert[8]; 7. 1-Brandon Sheppard[3]; 8. 58-Garrett Alberson[20]; 9. 18X-Michael Page[13]; 10. 32-Bobby Pierce[7]; 11. 9-Nick Hoffman[4]; 12. 28-Dennis Erb Jr[17]; 13. 10-Joseph Joiner[9]; 14. 33-Wil Herrington[14]; 15. 14JR-Trey Mills[24]; 16. 44D-Dalton Cook[15]; 17. 93-Carson Ferguson[21]; 18. 31-Tyler Millwood[11]; 19. 24B-Austin Bloodworth[23]; 20. 97-Cody Overton[12]; 21. 49-Jonathan Davenport[18]; 22. 13X-Dallon Murty[19]; 23. 79-Zack Mitchell[22]; 24. 25C-Shane Clanton[16]