Tanya Models The Rope Deflector Prototype
	Photo By RAP :: Race Action Photography

Tanya met Daryl back in the asphalt racing days when the 390 AMC Gremlin was the race vehicle of the day. When Daryl was in his late 20s', his friend approached him with the idea of a trade, his dirt bikes for Daryl's Gremlin. Daryl took one look at Tanya and said "We'll try this," and took off to race motocross on his new toy, for a year.

During this same time frame, Daryl and Tanya crewed a boat that ending up sitting for a year. The owners decided to sell it and kept making Daryl offers until he finally purchased it. He ran alcohol and later sold the boat to Verstuyft who raced it in Pro Mod. The Ehrlichs’ bought another boat, a root beer color, and named it Screamin Demon, that Verstuyft bought. The next boat, colored yellow and its' replacement colored lime green, were all named Screamin Demon. Due to financial reasons, they decided that their last year of racing had arrived, and the Bryant race, would be the last event for their Top Alcohol Hydro. How right, yet wrong, they were. Out of the blue, they received a call from Dennis Gibson, a man they had just met, two weeks earlier at the Bryant race. The phone call was an offer accepted. Daryl was moving into the seat of Dennis Gibson’s TFH. "I love racing, if we couldn't make a race, I think I'd be more upset than Daryl.

Tanya says the shop is twice the size of the house, "If I had it my way I would sell everything and move further out, build only a shop, no house. We live in the shop anyway, so I'd just build a bigger one".

According to Tanya, Daryl gets along with everyone, including his adversary Doug Verstuyft.

Daryl said "It's no fun unless I've got someone good to race against. He's looking forward to racing Verstuyft, who did not make the Lakefest venue. He and Verstuyft faced off in the final round at the 2006 IHBA World Finals where an uninjured Verstuyft destroyed his boat while Erlich raced down the finish line earning the TFH win for the event.
After the crash, the two antagonists, worked side by side for a while trying to get Verstuyfts' boat rebuilt for this upcoming season.

Erlich is at Lakefest with two major safety enhancements to his boat. One is a newer, safer cage. The second is the Ropeagator, Erlichs' invention to ensure the start rope doesn't get caught in his capsule lid.

Every capsule boat should be equipped with the Ropeagator, rope deflector, and it should be a mandatory piece of safety gear.