Bunky Barefoot - a tribute

Today is April's Fools Day.

This was Bunky Barefoot's favorite day.

He loved to celebrate his overactive imagination with the world, and on this day every year he wanted to know if anyone else believed it.

His pranks were so convincing, so funny, that even if you were the victim, you wanted to laugh with him instead of at him.

But Bunky's overshadowed his competitive nature as a driver. And although this page is essentially a tribute to Buddy Wayne Barefoot, I want to take this day to remind all of you that his first cousin was a star in his own right.

He was supposed to be a pretty little girl named Brittany. But the ultrasound readings turned out to be wrong. The baby was a boy, and instead he was called Britton Lee Barefoot when he was born in Raleigh, NC. While his first cousin's family was fractured and in turmoil, the boy who quickly gained the nickname "Bunky" was from a stable family. His father Bradford sold insurance, his mother Laurie worked in the clerical department of a local hospital, and he had two other siblings, Brandy and Bobbitt, both older.

Britton's life was relatively stable until he was 11 years old. At that point, he joined his older sister and moved to Baldridge Island. Suddenly, he moved halfway around the world to an unfamiliar place, surrounded by much older people with no parental supervision. "His demeanor suddenly changed, and he became very lonely and homesick," recalls Brandy. "Bunky wanted any escape he could get."

That came from racing. From another local resident, he overheard about Racing with Attitude, the new clash of Formula 1 and WWE wrestling in which style was just as important as substance. The RWA had a junior division called Lil' Plugs. Bunky made his debut there in 1998 and lapped the field, winning all but one start. On December 6, 1999, Bunky made his callup to the bigger circuit. He was only 13 years old.

"Everyone compared him to Jeff Gordon when Jeff was in the USAC cars because both drivers were very young and competed against much older drivers on a very high level," says Adam Bellville, the California broadcaster who was part of the RWA ownership group.

At first, he was part of a novelty act in which he joined three other family members in the series. Bobby Ray Barefoot drove car #42, B.R.'s younger brother Buddy Wayne #43, Brandy #44 and Bunky #45. But before long, Bunky made his own name.

On January 14, 2001, Bunky won the week's feature race at age 14. He ended that season fourth in the final standings and finished sixth in the single-race championship. He did not compete in the 2002 finale, which the rest of the family also missed, because of a dispute over global marketing rights and B.W.'s future schedule. B.W. left for the United States prior to 2002-03, but Bunky settled the dispute and continued.

On April 2, 2003 - the same day B.W. won the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway - Bunky won the season-ending championship race in the island's Budweiser Center. According to Autosport magazine, Bunky became the youngest-ever season champion for his country's top racing series.  The two were connected by satellite and spoke to each other after their race wins. Everyone was primed for a future NASCAR rivalry.

But the rivalry would have to wait due to the NASCAR rule book.

Since 2002, all drivers in the top series - now known as Sprint Cup, Nationwide Series, and Craftsman Truck Series - have had to be at least 18 years of age. Despite his inner confidence that he could compete in big-level NASCAR races, Bunky had to wait until May 22, 2004 to be in any of those events.

"[The rule] had to eat at him," Brandy says. "All he could do was watch the races and think that he could at least be as good as they were." Bunky spent 2003 and early '04 in a mixture of ARCA and Hooters USAR ProCup races.

On June 3, 2004, Bunky finally hit a NASCAR track for the first time. He won the pole position at Dover International Speedway for the CTS race. Four months later, on September 9, 2004, Bunky won the Kroger 200 at Richmond International Raceway, becoming the first 18-year-old to win a major NASCAR race.

"That was the day he was dreaming of, and the emotion was real," recalls CTS television announcer Rick Allen. "But neither I nor anyone else knew that this was only the beginning."

In 2005, Bunky, who drove for Buddy's BareLamb racing, won seven races and the season championship. His final margin of victory was a record spread between a champion and a runnerup - 325 points. "He was probably the best competitor I have ever taken to the track against," marvels series veteran Rick Crawford. "He had a maturity well beyond his years."

For 2006, Bunky jumped to Cup racing and joined PPI Motorsports, owned by California businessman Cal Wells. However, Bunky struggled with bad equipment and failed to qualify for several races. Finally, a lifeline came in August 2006. Ward Burton resigned from one of B.W.'s other Cup teams, perhaps to beat rumors that he was to be released from his contract. There was no question who B.W. was to turn to as he filled the vacancy.

"I have always been with him through it all, and there's no doubt he can handle Cup racing," B.W. proclaimed in August 2006. "All he needs is the chance."

And it all paid off in only Bunky's second race for BareLamb, the Sony HD 500 at California Speedway. Bunky was the race winner, becoming the youngest-ever to win a Cup race at 20 years, 3 months, and 29 days. He beat the previous record, held by Kyle Busch, by 20 days.

"The joy in his face was incredible as I interviewed him after the race," recalls Allen Bestwick, then at NBC/TNT and now at ESPN. "This was his dream come true. When it was over, I envisioned the Barefoots dominating the next 10 or 15 years in NASCAR. All the other families - the Pettys, the Earnhardts, Allisons, Waltrips and so on - could soon be compared to this family."

The team's plans for 2007 were for Bunky to drive full-time in both the NEXTEL Cup and Busch series (the current Sprint Cup and Nationwide series). In the Cup, he had secured sponsorship from MySpace for the first 13 races and more sponsors were being sought. His Busch schedule called for 15 races in the Sam's Club-sponsored car to be split with B.W. and Bubba Ray Lumpkin, and the remainder of the schedule for other Chevrolet-backed team owners like Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, and Kevin Harvick.

But as Bunky's reputation on the track grew, so did his strange reputation on it. He lived in a self-contained world with its own language and culture. For example, when his performance in a race car didn't go well, he claimed that the car "ate boogers." He often spoke of finding himself a "good-lookin' bodkin," which he meant a girlfriend. And drivers with rural backgrounds, or even just accents, were from "Tonsil, Kentucky." "It came to the point where I came to trackside to volunteer as a translator," Brandy laughs.

Bunky said that this was an offshoot of his isolation on Baldridge Island, when he needed "to do something to keep me sane," as he told Athlon magazine in 2007.

He was also an investor in wrong.com, a California-based online store that sold alternate reality merchandise. Examples included "Real Barenaked Ladies in Concert" T-shirts and boxes of "chocolate covered boogers," which actually contained malted milk balls.

Then there was Bunky's fascination with fast cars, jewelry (which he called "gleam") and women (which he admired for their "bodkins"). "He was the face of the new NASCAR," Bestwick says. "He was trying to take the sport in a new direction, one in which the sport reached out to a new, more urbane audience."

"He talked about one day being one of 'the beautiful people,'" adds former BareLamb manager Bart Adams, Jr. "He skipped out on the Daytona testing [in January 2007] after one day. He later reported back from Los Cabos, Mexico. Somehow, he got our pilot to take him there. Unbelievable. He also planned to go to Monte Carlo and Paris [during that season]."

He parlayed his new fame and love of adventure into a short-lived television series, BunkMaster: Operation X. In the series, the antihero title character went on a worldwide mission to save a Middle Eastern princess from the clutches of the villain Mister M. Despite the poor ratings, Bunky insisted until the end of his life that this was his favorite thing he ever did, even more than any of his championships.

The end of his life on Earth came on that fateful flight in Arizona on February 25, 2007. Like everyone else left behind, Brandy Barefoot was devastated.

"When I first heard of the crash, my heart fell to the floor. This was my beloved brother, and for all his quirks and how the public never understood him, I would defend him with my life. The funeral was the hardest day of my life."

And what about the relief of knowing that Bunky was being treated well in that part of heaven called Idealia? "I was baffled but relieved. After all, not everyone can be that close and intimate to their loved ones once they passed on to the other side. And Bunky was on television, for goodness sake!"

On July 4, 2007, Bunky placed fifth in his return at the Heritage Cup vintage-car race. Because of contest restrictions, Bunky raced at Britton Crabtree, as Crabtree was his paternal grandmother's name. He has since returned to Bowling Hill Speedway to compete in the weekly series, unlike Buddy Wayne, who has retired completely.

Bunky has also helped book acts for the My Ideal World variety show that is hosted by his first cousin at the town square.  Such musical artists as Melanie MacMelville, Bubba Brister, and Beatha have debuted on the program.

When the Cup returns on July 4, 2008, Bunky will again be in action, but this time under the name "Bunky Barefoot." The family will change to car #8 from #3 for the occasion. After all, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was Bunky's favorite driver.

"I trust that these two families tied together by grief have coped with the performances by these drivers," Brandy summarizes. "Dale Jr., Buddy Wayne, Bunky - all of them represent hope and optimism for a better future."

And Bunky would no doubt respond with a big smile, then with a hearty laugh. After all, that's just the way he is.