Lernerville is a family tradition
BUFFALO TWP — Lernerville Speedway is more than 40 years of racing history.
It's also 40 years of family history — the Lernerville family — pieced together by a long list of mostly part-time employees who have loyally served the track for 20 seasons or more.
"We care about this place," race director Albert "Ouch" Roenigk said.
"Everything at this facility, we either built ourselves or we helped build it.
"We had a cable fence around our track before they had one at Daytona."
From publicity directors to ticket takers, race scorers and pit steward, the same faces continue to serve the clientele at Lernerville.
And it's service with a smile because these workers want to be there.
"A lot of us are here from 8 a.m. on through on race nights," general manager Gary Risch Jr. said. "We just love being part of the sport."
Risch races in the Modified division, but last year gave up an eight-year racing career at Lernerville to take the reins as general manager at age 28.
He did so to maintain the family atmosphere created by the late Don Martin and the Martin family, the track's longtime owners who sold the facility three years ago to DIRT Motorsports Inc.
"I wanted to make sure Lernerville kept running the same way," Risch admitted. "When Dad and I took the position, we did it out of love for the track and the people who work here."
Gary Risch Sr. was co-general manager last year and is concessions manager this year.
"When Don Martin was here, he was an advocate of thanking people for doing what they do for him," Risch Sr. said. "That goes a long way.
"There are husbands and wives who work here, parents and children, retired people, housewives who don't work. ... The reason Lernerville survives is the people who work it."
Smokey Schempp organizes the drivers and race cards at Lernerville on Friday nights. He does the same thing at Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway on Saturday evenings.He spends his other five days hauling away asbestos on his truck."I've gone as far as Florida, Vermont, the Mississippi. ... I'm all over the place," Schempp said.Schempp is on the road from Sunday until 12:30 p.m. Friday every week. He gets home, takes a shower and reports to Lernerville by 4 p.m. on race night.Schempp has been driving a truck for 38 years. He's been in the racing business for 47."My grandfather raced an Indy car back in 1926," he said. "My father raced in the 1960s and '70s. I raced for years myself."Why do I keep doing it? I've never met any better people in my life than I've met here. This is like a second family to me on weekends."
Competition director Mark Hawk grew up in a house next to Lernerville when the track was in its infant stages of development."We used to sit on top of our garage and watch the races in 1968 when I was 9 years old," Hawk said."Once they built the grandstands and we couldn't see anymore, we built a bunch of tree houses in the trees off Turn 1."Don Martin got wind of that one day and tore them all out."Too late. Hawk had become a race fan for life."Don's the one who hired me here," Hawk said. "This place has always been a big part of my life."<br></br><br></br>
Carol Gamble shudders at the thought now.A full-time health teacher at Langley High School, Lernerville's former publicity director, now activities director, has been working at the track for 37 years."I worked five days a week at race tracks for 10 years in addition to teaching," Gamble said. "I used to bring a baby sitter to the track to watch my kids."Motordrome, Tri-City, Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, North Hills Speedway, Lernerville. ... I have no idea how I did that."Gamble has worked the sign-in gate at Lernerville, she scored races at North Hills, helped do the payroll, publicity — a little bit of everything.After a full day of teaching, she goes straight to the track late Friday afternoon and stays as late as 3 a.m. Saturday."We're all brothers and sisters here," Gamble said. "When the racing's over, we stick around and party a little bit. ... You have to blow off a little steam."
Mae Flagg has been working the pass gate at Lernerville since 1980. She met her husband, Greg, through his love of racing.Greg drove down from Erie every Friday to watch the races at Lernerville."Everybody here knows each other," Flagg said. "You see the same faces come through the turnstiles every week and you get to know a lot of them by name. I get a lot of hugs from fans I've known for years here."A co-worker introduced Flagg to her eventual husband. The couple got married on the same day as Lernerville's annual banquet in 2000.Their wedding reception turned out to be the banquet itself."We never miss a banquet — including that one," Flagg said.Just temporary — for 26 yearsCharmaine Macurdy's daughter, Dawn, sold tickets at Lernerville on race nights until she got out of college and moved to Texas."It was only a part-time job, but she loved working at Lernerville and didn't want to leave them shorthanded," Macurdy said. "She asked me to take over for her until they found somebody else."That was in 1981. And they still haven't found somebody else."Not that she minds. Macurdy doesn't really need the money and she doesn't make all that much anyway.It's the camaraderie she enjoys."Once I got there and got to know the girls, I enjoyed it," she said. "We have fun working together."I've never been a big race fan. I don't stay for the actual show. I read the write-ups in the paper to see how everyone's doing."Get here at 4:30 p.m., leave at 8:30. ... It's part of my routine now and I don't want to give it up."<br></br><br></br>
Linda Fennell saw the first race ever run at Lernerville — as a fan.Since then, she's been a photographer at the track. She also scores races, organizes paperwork and driver information for the announcers, does invoices and box seat sales, runs the electronic scoring and other various duties as office manager."She's the true backbone of Lernerville," Risch Jr. said. "Linda keeps this place going."Fennell prints the Motorsports World magazine and finds time to sell the magazine and score the races after her 40-hour work week is ended."From 4 p.m. Friday on, it's another job," she said.Before digital photography came along, Fennell ran a darkroom in her basement and would be in it until 4 a.m. Saturday processing her pictures so she could get them in Saturday's mail."Customer service is important to us," she said. "We appreciate the drivers' efforts and what it takes to get a car here ready to race and put on a show."It's the pride and challenge of providing good entertainment for the fans that keeps bringing us back year after year."In Lernerville's 40 years, Fennell has missed no more than 24 total race shows."This is where I am. This is what I do," she said. "And I love it. There's too many good people here to ever leave."<br></br><br></br>
"Ouch" Roenigk treats Lernerville's dirt track like a personal friend.It is, after all, his personal pride.Race drivers who tour the nation — World of Outlaws Sprint and Late Model racers — often tap Lernerville as one of the premier dirt racing surfaces anywhere."I've been called a dinosaur because of the time I put in and how much I care," Roenigk said. "There's maybe five of us left at dirt race tracks throughout the country.The morning after each race show, Roenigk runs a road grader over the track to smooth out the loose clay — an eight-hour process. A truck then pulls a roller around the track every other day to keep the race surface fresh.Depending on how much rain fell during the week, the track is watered each Thursday evening after the sun goes down. If no rain fell all week, 10 to 15 truck loads — each holding 3,000 gallons of water — are sprayed onto the track, a two-hour process."It's not that people don't know how to prepare a track. It's that they won't put the time in that's necessary to do it. It's not major surgery. It's knowing what to do and when to do it."Roenigk doesn't consider himself a dirt track guru, though he's been referred to as such."I try to stay focused on the job at hand," he said. "Lernerville is close to my heart. The employees here have sort of adopted the place.""It's not a family atmosphere," Risch Jr. insisted. "It's family."<br></br>
The following people have worked or have been involved with Lernerville Speedway for the past 20 years or more. Only Albert "Ouch" Roenigk and Linda Fennell have been full time throughout their tenure:<b>Employee.......................Position</b>Gary Risch Jr. - General ManagerGary Risch Sr. - Concessions Manager"Ouch" Roenigk - Race DirectorCarol Gamble - PublicityDonny Gallagher - FlagmanSmokey Schempp - Pit StewardJack Seckel - MarketingDan Fennell - PhotographerJim Magill - Race CoordinatorJoe Bogan - Line-UpLinda Fennell - Office ManagerRon Ehrman Jr. - Line-UpCharmaine Macurdy - Ticket SellerBetty Choltco - P.R. AssistantOliver Hawk - Fire PersonnelDale Fleming - WreckerButch Hartman - WreckerDoug Bigley - Push TruckKeith Burke - Push TruckDoc, Betty Sarver - Push TruckMark Hawk - Competition DirectorMae Flagg - Tickets
