DIRT Motorsports, Inc., made public yesterday its purchase of Lernerville Speedway, officially ending the popular dirt track's 37 years of family ownership.

While its plans for the facility still are developing, DIRT officials confirmed there already are three World of Outlaws Sprint Series races and two World of Outlaws Late Model Series events slated to run in 2005 at the 0.4-mile speedway in Sarver, Butler County. The company also owns a big-block modified series that could compete at Lernerville.

"We at DIRT Motorsports will strive to make every effort to honor and carry on the great tradition and success that the legendary [owner] Don Martin created, nurtured and maintained for so many years at the racetrack he cared so much for," DIRT Motorsports COO Bobby Hartslief said yesterday in a statement.

"The decades-long success of Lernerville Speedway made it attractive and we feel it's a worthwhile investment. We are anxious to work with its extremely strong contingent of weekly racers and loyalists, and we are also planning the development of a [World of Outlaws] Sprint Car Hall of Fame on the premises."

Hartslief added DIRT would release more details in the weeks ahead but that for the most part it will be "business as usual" at the racetrack in 2005.

Former Lernerville owners Helen Martin and Patty Martin Roenigk, the wife and daughter of the track's co-founder and longtime owner Don Martin, who died in 1993, began a quiet search to sell the speedway more than a year ago.

That pursuit ended Sunday in Las Vegas shortly before the World of Outlaws Sprint Series banquet when the deal for the facility, which includes more than 100 acres along Route 356 about 4 miles north of Route 228 in Butler County, was concluded.

Terms of the sale have not been released.

"Helen probably had the most to do with it, as it should have been," Roenigk said yesterday. "This was Helen's and Don's, but with Helen turning 80 and about a year and a half ago she fell and broke her hip, I kind of think that changed some things. Even though she's physically doing marvelously, I think what it did was make her kind of step back and take a look at this and say maybe it's time." Some believed the track might eventually be turned to Patty's son, Donny Roenigk, who has characteristics similar to those of his grandfather. But at 21 and graduating from Washington & Jefferson College in May, the timing wasn't right for that to happen.

"Donny was still too young and we kind of decided Lernerville's on top, maybe we'll just go out on top. That's kind of where we got what we got. And to be real honest with you, a lot of prayer went into this and a lot of thought. We decided with Helen's age and Donny's age that it was time to go out on top.

"If [Donny] would have ever wanted to take it over, he's only 21 and you're talking a number of years until he would be able to. These drivers that are 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, they don't want to listen to what a 21-year-old has to say. By the time Donny would get to the age that he could do it, you're talking a while down the road."

Martin and Roenigk began accepting numerous offers for the facility but agreed to lease it in 2004 to Barbara Bauman Bartley, the daughter of co-founder Earl Bauman, and Tom Roenigk, who worked at the track for 22 years, including the past 11 as track manager.

"At any point in the process you can hit a road block and it's over," Roenigk said. "We really didn't know until right now that things were going to work out. It may never have happened or it might have happened six months or a year from now. We didn't know how it was going to play out. It just so happened at the last minute, so to speak, we seemed to be able to come to an agreement.

"When we weighed the potential for Lernerville to continue, and I'll be honest with you money is a part of it, we considered a lot of different things and we made a decision that with the series DIRT Motorsports has we felt it had a pretty high chance of continuing."

Roenigk hopes DIRT will continue to run the facility on a weekly basis, and bring back Bartley and Tom Roenigk to run the program after the outstanding job they did in their first year as co-directors.

"What I understand is that their primary goal was to have a venue for their series," said Roenigk, who cited Don Martin's 2001 induction into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and his 1983 Promoter of the Year honors as her best memories of being involved with Lernerville.

"However, I think they also recognize that Lernerville didn't become Lernerville because of series. Lernerville became Lernerville because Don made it Friday nights, which nobody else did Friday nights. He was one of the first ones to make a Friday night work. I think because Lernerville was grown on such a loyal and supportive community base, that I think [DIRT] recognizes and appreciates that.

"My understanding is that they would certainly be comfortable with it continuing as a Friday night track, although I'm not sure that's their immediate goal, but I think they would try to facilitate that happening."