Junie Donlavey has rarely met anyone in NASCAR he didn’t like. And Donlavey has met a lot of people.

In Donlavey’s 53 years in NASCAR, more than 70 drivers have raced for him. The all-star list includes Buck and Buddy Baker, Benny Parsons, Cale Yarborough, Joe Weatherly, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Ernie Irvan and Bobby Isaac.

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Donlavey estimates that about 150 active mechanics and crew members have worked for him as well. But now, the long ride might be ending.

Donlavey’s team, based in Richmond, Va., has been without a sponsor since the C.F. Sauer Co. withdrew early last month.

“We’re in limbo at the moment,” Donlavey, 78, said. “We have a lot of good people beating the bushes (for sponsors).”

Donlavey doesn’t expect to bring his No. 90 team to Pocono Raceway this weekend for the Pennsylvania 500 Winston Cup race. He took his team to Daytona earlier this month, hoping to qualify for the Pepsi 400.

“We tried (to qualify),” he said, “but I wasn’t really interested in making it because I didn’t feel I had what I needed to be competitive. All my life we’ve been competitive at Daytona.”

Donlavey’s cars usually are competitive at most tracks, but in 838 starts his team has won just once: at Dover Downs in Delaware back in 1981. Driver Jody Ridley earned the victory.

Late in that race, Ridley was running third.

“Cale Yarborough and Neil Bonnett were one-two,” Donlavey recalled. “As each one blew an engine, it made me feel worse because they were very good friends of mine. I knew what it felt like to be running up front and have something happen like that. I wasn’t as happy winning (the race), as I was when we were running third.

“People say, ‘You’ve been in it all this time and only won one race.’ I say, ‘Yeah, but if I went back and counted the number of times that we were leading near the end of a race and should have won, I would say we haven’t had a successful career but we were very competitive.'”

Earlier this year, Donlavey was excited about fielding an all-Virginia Winston Cup team. Veteran Rick Mast, from Rockbridge Baths, Va., drove Donlavey’s Ford in nine races. Mast, however, has been sidelined with an undisclosed illness. (Ed Berrier tried to qualify the car for the Pepsi 400.)

Donlavey has stayed in Winston Cup because he’s had fun and met many nice people. However, the soaring expenses to field a team have been discouraging.

“I watched some of the best races that I’ve ever seen back in those days,” he said. “So, all the money being spent (today), to me I can’t see where it helps as far as the spectators are concerned. It’s too high-tech: it’s not what the (sport) started out to be.”

A major problem that Donlavey and other middle-of-the-pack Winston Cup entries face is that few sponsors want to pay millions for teams that don’t have much chance of winning.

Sometimes, Donlavey yearns for the old days when his race-day crews were volunteers and they traveled to races together in his motor home, nicknamed the “Blue Goose.”

“After a race at Michigan,” Donlavey said, “we’d ride all night long to get back to Richmond. That was when we had the motor home. The guys would all have showers and a pretty decent night’s sleep. When the motor home pulled in, they’d jump in their cars and go right to work. They were from all walks of life, which is what made it so good.”

Donlavey says the Blue Goose cost $6,500.

“Now, they cost $750,000 to $1 million,” he said. He still has the Blue Goose and has considered taking it to races.

“We’ve been thinking about fixing it up and parking it between those three-quarter million dollar homes,” he said.

Thinking of the reaction the Blue Goose would get makes Donlavey smile.

When Donlavey finally closes his shop, NASCAR won’t be the same. NASCAR might be as good or better without this Southern gentleman, but it won’t be the same.