Hills Bros leaving Donlavey UPDATE: Hills Brothers Coffee and Donlavey Racing are parting ways at the end of this Winston Cup season. Team owner Junie Donlavey stayed in Virginia to fulfill an obligation to visit a school and wasn’t at Kansas Speedway this weekend, but Donlavey does seem to be making plans to have sponsorship next season. Hills Brothers could be close to signing a deal with an established Winston Cup team. Driver Hut Stricklin and veteran crew chief Philippe Lopez, both employees of Hills Brothers’ parent company Sara Lee, plan to remain with the sponsor next season. Stricklin said the sponsor wanted Donlavey to move his team to the Charlotte, N.C., area, but Donlavey remained loyal to his hometown of Richmond. “I really have to commend Junie for being very loyal to the city of Richmond and to the state of Virginia because, let’s face it, this is big business and he didn’t turn his back on his homeland,” Stricklin said. “It’s a deal for me that I felt like I had to do what I had to do to survive.”(Richmond Times Dispatch)(9-29-2001) UPDATE: Petree and Nemechek could have different colors the rest of the season, if Petree can finish a deal with Hills Brothers Coffee, to replace Oakwood on the car the last two months of the season(Winston Salem Journal)(9-29-2001) AND Phillipe Lopez, team manager of Donlavey’s #90 and of the Sara Lee NASCAR endeavor, confirmed Friday that Hills likely will move up a step or two. “They’re talking to every team without a sponsor,” Lopez said. “They have a lot of meetings scheduled over the next two weeks. After that, I don’t know what they’re doing. They may narrow it down to two or three for call-back meetings.” The catch is that Sara Lee apparently intends to package driver Stricklin with the deal, although that is not beyond negotiation. “That’s what they’d like to do,” Lopez said(SpeedVision)(9-29-2001)
