Bunny is one of drag racing's most popular stars who has permanently etched her name in professional racing. Not just as a female in the sport, but as a successful competitor. The Bunny Burkett Racing Team has gained recognition as an outstanding competitor in the racing world. She is an IHRA World Champion, an NHRA Division II Champion, and the 1991 IHRA U.S. Open Nationals Champion in drag racing competition. Bunny has set numerous quarter and eighth mile world records for speed and elapsed time.  To date, she is the first and only female driver to win an NHRA National Event in Alcohol Funny Car competition. Bunny's appearance always draws enthusiastic responses from audiences. A sure-fire hit with the media, Bunny has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. Her popularity and interpersonal skills appeal to young and older audiences. This has resulted in requests for numerous interviews, personal displays, and celebrity appearances.

Bunny's active drag racing career spans 30 plus years. Numerous successful racing accomplishments have occupied her colorful life contributing to her popularity. She has successfully driven all types of competition racers from an E/S '65 Mustang to her current Mopar Performance Ethanol Powered Dodge Avenger Top Alcohol Funny Car, aptly named the "Hemi-Honey." One of Bunny's personal best performances includes a track record elapsed time of 6.00 seconds, which equates to a speed of 237 mph in a quarter mile run.

The Burkett Team's expertise, professionalism and desire to succeed in the sport have won praise from fellow racers and fans throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. It's no surprise to anyone watching the team that their nickname, "Bunny & Her Boys," truly portrays the team commitment to win and their confidence in Bunny. The team's reputation for perseverance and determination is well known in the drag racing community.

In September 1995, during her 31st season in drag racing, Bunny experienced her only serious accident. It was near fatal. While racing, a fellow competitor rammed into her car at over 200 mph. Her car was forced off the track, through a ditch and into the woods. She suffered multiple broken bones and crushed vertebrae's. She was in intensive care for over a week with little hope for recovery, and no hope for resuming her love for racing competition. Her determination and competitive spirit led to a remarkable recovery. However, it proved to be very painful and outrageously expensive. She has endured numerous operations to, as she puts it, "put Mrs. Humpty Dumpty back together again." She still wears metal rods to hold her vertebrae in place. However, Bunny has convinced her doctors that her efforts for recovery and determination to resume her love and dedication to drag racing will enable her to nestle in her driver's seat for competition in the spring of 1998.

In 1997, Bunny brought out a brand new 1997 Dodge Avenger Funny Car, and continued to thrill the fans with her competitive driving style. During 1997, both of the steel rods in her back snapped while she was turning to look at something. Bunny, not wanting to disappoint her fans, stayed behind the wheel until the season ended, suffering with the pain and risking paralysis to keep her promise to her fans. Now, with new rods in place, Bunny is ready to race and win again. It is that kind of dedication to the sport and to her fans that has helped to make Bunny Burkett one of the true heroes of Drag Racing!

Bunny uses an Ethanol Fuel mixture in her race car. It enables her to fulfill her dedication in promoting a clean environment through the use of an environmentally clean fuel made from U.S. grown corn.

Hoppin Down the Quarter Mile

by Scott Long / Hammer & Dolly Magazine

So many drag racers in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area seem to know her name. So why has it taken Hammer and Dolly so long to include her in a racing issue? We kick off our sixth annual tribute to racers with a look at Bunny Burkett.

Burkett, born Carolyn Ruth Hartman in 1945, grew up in poverty in West Virginia. Her father left when she was 2. When she was 13, Burkett's mother and stepfather moved the family to Chantilly, Va., where her mother ran a boarding house.

One of the boarders, a man named Marion who went by "Mo," started dating Burkett when she was 15. Their early dates involved him taking her to the partially built runways at Dulles Airport, where he taught her to drive fast in his '55 Mercury. He also took her to drag races at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va.

"I said, 'I want to do that,"' said Burkett of her first exposure to drag racing. "He said, 'You don't even have your driver's license.' I said, 'I'm going to do this."'

Marion and Carolyn were married, and at age 19, she purchased a 1964 Mustang. She competed in the car at Old Dominion the day after she bought it and won her first race.

The Mustang also served as transportation for the Burkett family. When it was rear ended, Burkett took a job briefly as a hostess in the former Playboy Club in Baltimore to earn the money to buy a new ride. She returned to drag racing soon after with a 1967 Mustang and a new nickname: "Bunny."

As a woman in a sport dominated by men, Burkett said she's actually experienced very little resistance from her fellow racers. "I worked my way into the hearts of the male competitors without being too abusive," she said. "I didn't go in saying, 'I'm a woman. I'm taking over.' I just said, 'I'm here, and I love drag racing."'

This is one area where Burkett believes her racing role model, Shirley Muldowney, could have done better. "She knocked down all the barriers for ladies getting their NHRA license. She mowed down the trees and made the humps easier," said Burkett.

"I don't agree with the way she handled herself sometimes, though," said Burkett of Muldowney. "She was overbearing and sometimes not too ladylike. But I can't throw stones. I don't know what I would have done in the same circumstances."

Burkett can understand wanting to get angry, however. She recalls when she starting gaining national notoriety in 1972 and NHRA required her to sign a ladies' driving permit. "Men didn't have to sign a men's driving permit," said Burkett. "I still have the ladies' driving permit. It's in mint condition, and one day it will be an interesting part of racing history."

She also remembers a time when a male competitor kicked in the door of his car after she beat him. "There are male chauvinists, but they're few and far between," said Burkett.

Burkett won the 1986 IHRA Funny Car world championship and earned an NHRA Division 11 crown the same year. She has set numerous IHRA and NHRA records, but one incident on Labor Day in 1995 nearly brought, not only her career, but her life to an end.

Burkett was racing Carl Ruth in the Fall Funny Car Classic at Beaver Springs Dragway in Beaver Springs, Pa., when Ruth crossed over into her lane at over 200 mph, sending Burkett's car 100 feet into the woods. She believes that a touch of male chauvinism may have played a part in the accident.

"He should've aborted that run at the eighth-mile mark. He was overdriving the car," said Burkett of Ruth, who retired from driving after the wreck. "I get so tired of men having to give it that extra edge of 'I'm not going to be outrun by a woman or I'll never live it down."'

Burkett, who had to be resuscitated three times on the way to the hospital, spent over a week in intensive care. Her arms, legs, and portions of her vertebrae were broken. "It's easier for me to tell you what wasn't broken than what was," she said.

A year and a-half later, however, she was racing again. Her first racetrack appearance was at the Maryland International Raceway in Budds Creek, Md., where Dennis Moore of Moore's Body Shop in Baltimore arranged an emotional match race between Burkett and his son, Damian, in Junior Dragsters.

"Here I was, supposed to never drive a Funny Car again," said Burkett. "But they never said I couldn't drive a Junior Dragster." Following the race, Dennis Moore presented Burkett with a check for $5000 worth of donations that he had gathered.

Another collision repair facility, Olde Towne Auto Body in Alexandria, Va., came to Burkett's aid when her husband lost his job at the quarry where he'd worked for 36 years. "Dennis Whitestone [Olde Towne's owner] hired Mo two days after he was fired. He said, 'I'll find something for him to do. You'll have a paycheck to eat on,"' said Burkett.

"I want everyone to know what a kind, unselfish person Dennis Whitestone is. He took our family under his wing," said Burkett. "My angels have all been named Dennis. Both body shops took someone who was crushed and broken and made me new again."

In addition to the outpouring of support she received from Moore, Whitestone, and hundreds of race fans, Burkett believes she got a little help from above. "I'm convinced it wasn't my time to go. I'm positive to this day that the Lord intervened," she said. "There were so many people praying for me, and He just threw up His hands and said, 'Okay, I'll make her well, but she has to do a job for me."'

That job, said Burkett, is to let people know "that as long as you have a heart full of faith and work hard, there's no reason you can't do what you want to do."

One place where she takes this message is the Quartermasters Racing Team of Forestville, Md., which tries to help needy families and children. She also brings her message to local schools. "I try to talk to kids about staying on the right track and show them that they need an education," she said.

Two young men who are particularly special to Burkett are her godsons, Damian Moore and "Lil' Bear" Pritchett, son of her crew chief, "Bear" Pritchett. Both have competed in Junior Dragsters and Junior Funny Cars and are poised to take over the driving duties for the Bunny and the Boys racing team when Burkett decides to climb out from behind the wheel.

Until then, Burkett continues to compete locally and around the country. Her schedule can be found at her Web site, www.bunnyburkett.com.

Though she races without a major corporate sponsor, Burkett is grateful to those who help keep her 2500 hp Dodge Avenger on track: C&C Motorsports Specialists, Damian Moore Racing, Ethanol Performs, Holbrook Performance Parts, J&J Custom Painting, Jim's Transmissions, Ladd's Porting Service, Manassas Ice and Fuel Company, Mopar Performance Parts, Musselman's Dodge, Olde Towne Auto Body, Olympic Auto Parts, R.C. Videos, and World Wide Racing Fuels.

Burkett, 1998's Super Stock Hall of Famer, also thanks her crew, who are all volunteers. "Without them, I'm an absolute nobunny," she said. "I can't get my car down the track if it hasn't been prepared by them."

When does this mother of two and grandmother of two plan to retire?  "When it's time, I'll be the first to know it," she said. "You have to be in good physical shape and have the mental alertness to be able to make proper decisions in the car. When I can't do that, I'm putting the helmet down."

Hammer and Dolly/July 2000