Buddy Wayne Barefoot is an American athlete and entertainer who has become famous for his unprecedented successes in every walk of life in which he has entered. In about three years' time, he has gone from a relatively obscure prospect to an iconic figure, especially in the southern United States.

Birth and early life

Buddy Wayne Barefoot, Jr. was born on April 7, 1979 in Dunn, North Carolina. However, he grew up in the town of Benson, six miles away. From the beginning, his life was marked by turmoil and difficulty. His mother, Brenda, suffers from fragile X syndrome, which is a developmental disorder. In an apparent attempt to escape the burden of her condition, Brenda drank heavily and took antidepressant drugs, and did not stop even while she was pregnant with Buddy Wayne. This resulted in Buddy Wayne having several birth defects, including limbs on one side shorter than that on the other, some mental delays, and worse of all, a heartbeat with an inconsistent rhythm. His father, also named Buddy Wayne, thought that the defects "contaminated" the parents' second son, and sometime in 1983, the couple separated. The younger Buddy Wayne stayed with Brenda, while the other child, Bobby Ray Barefoot, moved with their father to another home in the area.

Because of her disability, family welfare officials in North Carolina deemed Brenda an unfit mother. Brenda responded by petitioning the court for a reversal, which she won in 1985. Officials appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court; however, the original ruling was upheld in 1987.

During the case, Alonzo Barefoot, Brenda's father-in-law, took Buddy Wayne in and the two moved to Newton Grove, another nearby town. Buddy Wayne has credited Alonzo for his love of both sports and music. The two started attending NASCAR races at North Carolina Speedway in nearby Rockingham, and Alonzo gave Buddy Wayne a guitar, on which he sang simple songs like "Bluebird", which later became his biggest hit. Even after the final ruling in favor of Brenda, Buddy Wayne would split time between Brenda and Alonzo.

Barefoot attended Benson High School as a freshman, then South Johnston High School in Four Oaks after a school consolidation. Barefoot led South Johnston to the state basketball semifinals in 1996 as a junior. However, a knee injury ended his senior season at about the halfway mark. Despite the injury, he was still offered a scholarship to attend Campbell University, a NCAA Division I college. That was before fate intervened.

Baldridge Island: The legend begins

In 1997, some entrepreneurs bought the development rights to an island located at the intersection of the Equator and the Prime Meridian. The island was called Baldridge Island in honor of former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige. Thousands of young people from around the world settled in a promised land of opportunity. Barefoot was among them, but not without drama. The elder Buddy Wayne prohibited his sons from moving there, citing what he thought was Satanic influences. Late one night, a group of friends went on a daring adventure of subterfuge to pick up Buddy Wayne and Bobby Ray and transport them to Raleigh-Durham International Airport, arriving just before a connecting flight took off for New York on the way to the island.

Once there, Barefoot performed gigs at hotel lobbies and a nightclub called Country Standard Time. In 1998, he heard of a new sports organization called Racing with Attitude, which combined short-track auto racing with the showmanship of professional wrestling. Barefoot accepted the role of a backwards bumpkin from the South well versed in NASCAR history. The gimmick was a joke--until he started winning. From 1998 to 2002, Barefoot won 80 of 102 main event races, the points championship all four years, and the official championship, which was decided in a one-race playoff, in 1999 and 2002.

Barefoot's dominance resulted in calls from NASCAR teams. According to an biography by former CNN reporter Brian Cabell, Barefoot was on the verge of accepting a role as driver of the new #19 car owned by former champion crew chief Ray Evernham, but Barefoot found some terms of his contract unacceptable and stayed on Baldridge Island. Casey Atwood was chosen as the driver (he has since been replaced by Jeremy Mayfield).

While that was going on, Barefoot's sales of albums in which he recorded traditional country music were higher than expected, and he was hailed as "the next Garth Brooks" by the Nashville press. It was apparent that Barefoot was a rising star in both the sports and entertainment worlds.

Back to America

In 2002, Barefoot decided to try NASCAR again, this time with a team co-owned by girlfriend/manager Shayla McLamb, entertainer Brian McRipper and the Baldridge Island embassy. He hired a mix of local short-track racing talents and crew members lent by other top NASCAR teams, like Hendrick Motorsports, Richard Childress Racing, and Dale Earnhardt Inc. Also in the summer, his third album, Love Buddy, was released. One of the songs on that album, "Southern Rhapsody," written in a bout of homesickness when he lived on Baldridge Island, became a surprise hit and regional anthem. It resonated elsewhere, too; it spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard pop charts, the first such crossover since Johnny Lee hit the top with "Looking for Love" in 1981.

Barefoot made his NASCAR debut at the 2003 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway, finishing ninth. He shocked the racing world with a third-place finish at the rain-shortened Daytona 500 the following week; three weeks later, he won his first race, a 400-miler at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. When Barefoot won the Coca-Cola 600 (also rain-shortened) in May, he broke the alltime record for most wins by a NASCAR rookie, which was three. Barefoot's astonishing season continued with three straight wins in August and September, and in November, he became the first rookie to win the NASCAR championship. Fittingly, he clinched with a win at Rockingham, the track at which he and Alonzo spent so many days together.

Barefoot's music career reached new levels as well. In 2003, he expanded the original "Bluebird" to include a narrative of his friends' efforts to get him out of the clutches of his father in time to travel to Baldridge Island. RCA (which signed Barefoot while he lived on the island) released it as a single. That song not only also reached the top of the Billboard charts, but stayed at number one for a record 18 weeks, breaking a mark held by a Boyz II Men/Mariah Carey tune, "One Sweet Day." Also, Barefoot set a single night record for most Grammy Awards with nine; Michael Jackson and Santana set the previous standard with eight.

In 2004, the "Benson Bopper" decided to give movies a try, filming a movie about a counterterrorist superhero for which he wrote the screenplay. Barefoot became the first professional athlete to film a starring role in a major motion picture while his sport's season was still in progress.

On October 25, 2004, Barefoot suffered a mild heart attack. There were several factors cited:

The relentless schedule of both the NASCAR season and his film schedule. Barefoot's worked up to 90 hours each week.

The psychological effects of the fatal airplane crash on Oct. 24, in which 10 people were killed in a plane leased by Hendrick Motorsports. Among the victims were Rick Hendrick's brother, son, and two of her nieces.

The stress caused by the "Chase for the Nextel Cup," a new innovation NASCAR began in 2004. The top 10 drivers, and all others within 400 points, as of a cutoff date in September, are the only ones eligible to compete for the series championship. The points are reset to give those drivers an advantage.

Donald Barefoot, a distant cousin and local leader of the Ku Klux Klan, was charged with murder. The last name Barefoot is common in eastern North Carolina and Buddy Wayne and other namesakes had worked to distance themselves from Donald Barefoot.

Despite the condition, Barefoot started the next week's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway; under NASCAR rules, he would be credited with points for the finish. However, he only lasted 14 laps before turning the car over to Ricky Rudd. Barefoot beat Kurt Busch for the season's title by one point, the closest margin in NASCAR history.

The Rebel Movie

In 2005, Barefoot's movie debut, Rebel, was released around the world. He teamed with veteran actor Burt Reynolds, first-time director Glenn Ribble, and first-time distributor Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson for a film that was critically acclaimed and well-received by audiences. The worldwide box office figure of $917.6 million is the fourth-highest in Hollywood history. Of that, over $600 million was made in the U.S. alone, beating the likes of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Batman Begins as the leading film of the year. Bonnie Joe Pride, who played one of the villains, was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actor.

The film was such a success (Barefoot made an estimated income of $120 million from taking a percentage of gross revenues and merchandise sales) that he funneled some of it back to creating a television network. It will be called Rebel: The Network and Barefoot, Paxson, and Fox Television Stations are the co-owners. The channel, which contains spin-off series from the movie and original content, will debut on September 11, 2006, five years to the day after the famous attacks on the United States.

Other ventures

Barefoot now owns eight full-time teams in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, the NASCAR Busch Series, and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. His 19-year-old cousin, Britton "Bunky" Barefoot, won the truck series title in 2005.

He owned Buddy's, a Southern-themed restaurant and nightclub located in Benson, as well as Orlando, Florida, but he sold the locations to Yard House in 2005.

Since January 2006, he has hosted a daily talk show on XM Satellite Radio.

He will host My Ideal World, a variety show on his new TV network.

Controversy

The Buddy Wayne Barefoot package not only includes phenomenal talent, but also a blunt nature. It's gotten him in hot water several times:

His display of the St. George battle flag (commonly called the "Confederate flag") has put him in odds with civil rights leaders who consider it one of the premier symbols of American racism. NASCAR has given him permission to put the flag on the back of his driving suit because he can trace his ancestry to Bright Barefoot, who served in the U.S. Civil War as a Confederate soldier. Two versions of the Rebel movie were distributed to theaters: one with a scene showing American and Confederate flags, and one without.

He has challenged drivers Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick to fights on separate occasions.

He was fined $500,000 and docked 190 points in September 2005, the week of Hurricane Katrina, for getting under NASCAR's skin with various comments. One of them was, "I'd rather race against my good old boys on Saturday night than with these strangers on Sunday afternoon." He was also cited by Rebel's antagonistic characters on NASCAR president Mike Helton and several other drivers. The point margin cost Barefoot a third straight Nextel Cup title; Stewart won it instead.

In the 2006 debate over illegal immigration, he accused Mexican farm workers who have moved into the Benson area of "trying to destroy our way of life in the name of a paycheck they won't keep anyway." He also blasted farm families for selling their farms to corporations, which then turned around and hired the immigrants.

See also

Buddy Wayne Barefoot: NASCAR career

Buddy Wayne Barefoot: Recording career

Rebel

Rebel: The Network

External links

Personal site

Business site

Fan club