BUTLER TWP — Just a pleasant ride on a Sunday afternoon.

Sally Murdick viewed it as quality time with her husband.

“Carl and I went out each Sunday with his brother and wife,” she recalled. “It was just so peaceful and relaxing. I looked forward to it every week.

“I had no idea they were looking to buy a race car.”

Those Sunday drives were actually car-shopping trips.

“Carl wound up buying a car on one of those Sundays and we were at a track racing it that Friday,” Sally said. “Our lives changed at that point.”

For decades.

Murdick, 78, is wrapping up a 56-year dirt track racing career that’s seen him win 54 Modified races on nine different tracks. He’s been married to Sally for 58 years.

He is the only driver to race at Lernerville Speedway during all 48 full seasons of the track’s existence. Murdick built his own race cars through the years, including the engines.

“He’s just an old-fashioned guy,” said Jo Krummert, his grand-daughter. “He can fix anything you put in front of him.”

Murdick’s son, Dave, has been racing Modifieds himself since 1979. Dave Murdick won track championships at Lernerville in 2004 and 2005. His father won the track title there in 1970.

“Things were a little different then,” Carl said. “The track was a little smaller and they didn’t pay as much when you won a race.

“Of course, it didn’t cost all that much to race then, either.”

Dave Murdick still has trouble believing his father is getting out from behind the wheel.

“I still have a newspaper in the garage from 1996 that said he only figured on racing for another year or two,” Dave said. “It’s just hard to believe this is finally it.

“Dad doesn’t have any other hobbies ... This is what he does.”

He’s done so consistently for years. Carl has raced at more than 25 tracks. He raced at Butler Speedway on New Year’s Day. He won the heat, feature and Australian pursuit all in one night at Blanket Hill Speedway.

He even finished second in a 306-lap, 100-mile race at Motordrome in 1969.

Murdick has finished among the top 10 in points at tracks he’s raced steadily at for decades. But he admits time is catching up to him.

This season at Lernerville, he’s finished 10th in a feature three times and he’s sitting 12th in points, 45 shy of the top 10.

“This is it,” he said, declaring 2015 as his final season. “It’s too hard to keep up with them anymore.”

“He has to wear that hearing aid now,” Sally said. “ All those years of racing and working in the mill ... It’s taken its toll on him.”

But that toll has been kind.

Along with Dave Murdick’s successful racing career, Carl’s daughter Sheila and son-in-law Gary Rankin raced Sprint cars for years. His granddaughter, Bobbi, has raced a Sprint. His granddaughter Jo is married to Modified driver Garrett Krummert.

And his wife, Sally, has come full-circle when it comes to racing.

“Carl asked me what we’re going to do on weekends next year,” Sally said, laughing.” I told him, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ll be at the track.’

“I’m sure he’ll wind up helping out with Dave and Garrett’s cars.”

Dave agreed.

“We’re not just gonna let him disappear,” Dave said.

Not a chance. He knows too much about race cars.

“Every day, he goes down to the garage at 10 a.m. to work on the car and he doesn’t quit until 8 at night,” Sally said. “Sometimes he’ll pop in for lunch and dinner. Sometimes I’ll have to run lunch down to him and hold dinner until he’s done.”

Jo Krummert said her grandfather has saved her husband “thousands of dollars” with his knowledge of engines.

“He and Garrett have worked together to rebuild a motor,” she said. “Send that thing out to get done and it’s a couple thousand dollars.

“Grandpap really is the last of his kind. I don’t know if there’s anyone left who knows race cars inside and out like he does. All those years of racing, he’s had his share of mishaps. But even if he was still up at 2 a.m. rebuilding that car, he was back out racing it the next night.”

When it came to building, prepping and driving a car on the track, Carl Murdick has been a one-man gang.

“He’s probably the last guy left who could do it all,” Dave said.

A handful of races will carry Carl’s racing career into October. Then it’s done.

“It’s been good to me,” he said of the sport. “It was something I could do for myself. It’s been a bond for our family, too.”

No argument from the wife on that one.

“There aren’t many hobbies out there that a family can do together,” she said. “But we found one.”