Consistency the key to cash for Mast.

Rick Mast and Donlavey Racing (pictured in 2000) are what you would call a veteran team. At 45 years of age, Mast has been in racing for more than a quarter of a century while team boss Junie Donlavey has racked up more than twice that amount of years on the NASCAR pit-wall.

In 2002 this combo will have more years of experience behind them than virtually every other team in the pitlane and starting at Daytona, both a determined to translate that experience into results.

After securing financial backing from the CF Sauer/Duke's Mayonnaise company during the off-season, Junie Donlavey enters his 52nd season in NASCAR competition with an all Virginia based team for the very first time.

Based in Richmond, VA. Donlavey's driver and primary sponsor are all native Virginians and after spending some much needed time in the wind tunnel last month, both Mast and Donlavey have good reason to believe that if they qualify for the 2002 season opening Daytona 500, a good result and a very big payday could be on the cards.

Wily veteran Mast, who has bounced around the NWC scene since leaving the Richard Jackson team at the end of 1996, raced for both Donlavey and the team's new sponsors last year, at different times. After the Midwest Transit team collapsed mid-season, Mast had the thankless task of trying to qualify the No.27 CF Sauer sponsored Eel River Pontiac before that team also disbanded despite some truly heroic performances from its driver. Then when Hut Stricklin and Hills Bros abruptly left Donlavey last autumn, Mast stepped into the No.90 Ford Taurus owned by the former WWII fighter for the final few races of the season.

With a budget and renewed confidence, Mast comes to the Daytona International Speedway with a remarkable, if unsung record. A record which if continued, could reap rich rewards for the low-budget operation.

Of all the 53 drivers entered for the 'Superbowl' of Stock Car Racing, not one has completed a higher percentage of race laps around the 2.5-mile high banked Superspeedway than Mast who, since his NWC debut in 1988 has started 20 races at DIS and finished every single one of them. With a massive 99.2 per cent of all racing laps completed at the Speedway, Mast has a clear lead in this statistical category over Johnny Benson, who has completed 98.4 per cent of laps in just eleven Daytona starts, and Jerry Nadeau, who has completed 97.9 per cent after only seven starts.

Although both Mast (Midwest Transit) and Donlavey failed to make the cut for the Daytona 500 last year, Mast and the No.50 Hal Hicks owned squad did manage to qualify for July's Pepsi 400 only to struggle home 34th. Stricklin, driving Donlavey's No.90 machine, failed to qualify. If the No.90 team can get their Superspeedway package together in time for the Gatorade 125 mile qualifying races, Mast's track record points towards a good result in the '500 itself with the driver owning a best DIS career finish of fourth, achieved in the 1991 Daytona 500.

Even when his car is not sorted, Mast has shown that in addition to being a demon short track contender, he can also muscle his way around the Superspeedway's as shown in 2000 when he managed to get the disintegrating Larry Hedrick's team into the Daytona 500 and bring home a top 30 finish for the team which folded just weeks later

Mast has two top ten starting positions at Daytona, a seventh for the 1991 '500 and a ninth place effort in the same year for the July event and has finished on the lead lap in no less than ten of his 20 Daytona starts, not bad considering his machinery has rarely been competitive. Unfortunately Mast also holds another record in that of all currently active NWC drivers with no race victories, Mast has the most starts with 355 in total.

While a victory for Mast and the Donlavey team would require one of, if not the strangest NASCAR races of all time, this veteran team could turn heads at Daytona, for reasons other than their paint scheme.