Dirt
TRIBUTE: BUNNY BURKETT
race. Puzzled at her proclamation, Mo laughingly
replied, “Girls can’t drive!”
His words eventually became a well-known and
humorous part of Bunny’s racing history, but at
the time, Mo actually had a point. “I was 15 years
old, was straight out of the hills of West Virginia
and, in fact, couldn’t drive...mainly because we
walked everywhere we went!” Bunny confessed.
She had a marvelous idea though: “Suppose
you teach me!” Mo agreed, and so every evening
the youngsters would sneak off to Dulles International
Airport, which was then still under construction,
and Bunny would climb behind the
wheel of Mo’s 1955 Mercury, and she practiced
maneuvering an automobile for the first time.
When Mo asked Bunny to marry him, she
pondered the request as much as a 16-year-old
could, and even flipped a coin just to be sure.
They soon married and were inseparable for the
next 58 years.
Within days of being married, Mo bought his
young bride a brand-new 1964.5 Mustang, which
served as their first daily driver as a married
couple, as well as Bunny’s first race car, as they
traveled to Old Dominion Dragway practically
every weekend during those early years. Their
first daughter arrived the following year, and the
couple’s second daughter was born while Bunny
was still 18.
Over the ensuing years, Bunny raced several
Mustang street cars and eventually drove a pink
Pro Stock Ford Pinto before settling into Funny
Cars, which would ultimately define her career.
She began racing a 1976 Mustang-bodied flopper,
before later debuting a 1982 Corvette Funny Car.
Her most noted success came behind the wheel
of a 1986 Chrysler Laser Funny Car, in which she
won the IHRA championship in 1986, while placing
fourth in NHRA competition, highlighted by
a win at the Keystone Nationals at Maple Grove
Raceway. Bunny was amused by the Chinese zodiac
sign for 1986, which ironically was a rabbit.
“It really was the year of the bunny!” she laughed.
Bunny traveled abroad to race in Puerto Rico
and Germany, and over the course of her 55-year
racing career, built a larger-than-life fan base. She
cherished her role in helping pave the way for
women in drag racing, and will be long remembered
for her warm, kind personality, as much as
her drag racing milestones, smoky burnouts and
thrilling match races. DI
28 | Drag Illustrated | DragIllustrated.com Issue 156