One of Jo Krummert’s greatest pleasure is going to the automobile races.

It all started when she was six months old at Lernerville Speedway and a few decades later, she still considers it a necessary element of her quality of life.

“I thought everyone went racing on the weekends. When I started at Butler High School, I asked a person if they were going to the racetrack on Friday and she said ‘no …to the movies’. Others said they were going to a football game. That surprised me!” Jo said.

Her grandfather, Carl Murdick and uncle, Dave Murdick, are both Hall of Fame drivers. To date, Jo’s most memorable moment in racing was the night at Lernerville in 2016 when Carl, at 79, retired after 56 years of piloting Late Models and Modifieds. At intermission, track announcer Dow Carnahan, was to honor him with an interview.

As they were standing there talking, it looked like a sea of drivers poured out of the pit area and streamed to the flag stand to pay tribute to the popular driver. Every driver from all the divisions was there!

Jo said, “Smokey Schempp (Pit Steward) didn’t tell me this was going to happen.” It melted her heart! “I had never seen anything like this before,” she said with astonishment.

Jo was the first person to earn the titles, Little Miss Saxonburg, Junior Miss Saxonburg and Miss Saxonburg. Then she went on to be Miss Junior Butler County, Miss Butler County and Miss DIRT Motorsports.

The lovely Butler County Community College graduate was one of the top ten finalists in the Miss Pennsylvania Pageant but the prize for being Miss Tri City Speedway was the best! She met her husband Garrett Krummert there, who currently is a top contender in the Modified Division and also drives a Crate Modified for owner Jerry Shaffer.

Jo said, “I just loved to watch Grandpa, Dave, and Garrett all race together!”

Garrett’s introduction to racing was a little different.

“My grandfather, Dave, owned a camp on Pymatuning Lake and we visited it a lot. A neighbor had a yard sale and he bought me a little quad when I was 2 years old,” Krummert said. “It was just a little 50cc engine and had one of those pull rip cords on the back so that someone walking behind me could pull to shut it off if things got out of hand.

“I probably put more miles on that quad than I will ever put on any car that I’ll own.”

When Garrett was 3, his dad, Larry, checked out a local Motor-cross track and they had a quad division for his age bracket. Krummert raced the quad and when he was 5, his dad got a little motorcycle and he raced them both until he was 8.

While racing, he met Arnie Kent, who became involved with Micro-sprints and also raced quads on the side and he built all of Krummert’s quad motors.

“We’d race quads on Friday and then on Saturdays go to Hickory and watch Arnie race,” he said.

Karen, his mother, ended it because she didn’t believe 8-year-old motorcycle racing was safe.

“She was probably right,” Krummert said.

From ages 8-14, he raced Go-Carts and while at a major event, they signed him in as #29, which he kept as his permanent number over the years. Krummert did really well racing Go Carts and checkered 100 features, carving out 25 wins in one year.

When he was 13, his parents made him go to work for Andy Priest, whom he met through Arnie because they were both New Castle guys.

“I worked on his Modified and Sprint stuff after school Monday through Thursday and went to the track on weekends. It taught me a lot about set ups and fixing cars and helped to get me where I am today,” Krummert said.

His dad bought a Modified when he was 15 and Tri-City Speedway was the only track around that would let you race at that age, provided he went to Dirt Motor Sports Driving School. So that’s what he did and he found the first year to be a real eye-opener.

“We learned a lot, but competing with a small block engine against big blocks was not too good,” he remembered.

Mercer opened up a new Modified Division that was for 358 block engines. He won a Mercer 358 Modified Championship in 2007. His next move was into Late Models because there were so many tracks close to home that ran that division.

He bought a car from John Flinner and competed in that division until 2015. It began to be a struggle. The Late Model division was pricing him out and he decided to sell his racer, all the parts, and take a break.

Over the winter, he saw Modified driver Brian Swartzlander. who told Krummert he had a complete car and motor for sale. Krummert and his dad decided to switch back to that division and bought the car.

They ran well, finishing in the top five to seven places in the features.

“The car really fit my driving style and budget,” he said.

Driving Jerry Shaffer’s Crate Modified gave him more seat time and his skills sharpened, molding him into one of the best drivers around.

He parks next to the Murdicks’ and the families all help one another. He loves chicken wings! Krummert’s crew consists of his dad, Ryan and Amy Haney, Jorden Ehurnberg, his wife Jo and Grandpa Carl Murdick.

Krummert’s goal now is simply to enjoy his family, be competitive and have fun!

Carol Gamble is a racing columnist for the Butler Eagle.