Buddy Hull learned the importance of power and how to harness it for the greater good in his life. Today, he’s using horsepower in a similar fashion. 

For the former professional powerlifter, Hull is using the color pink to show there’s strength in the hue. He sees nothing but power in the pink adorning his Vertex Roofing and General Contractors dragster.

Hull is using this power to raise money for cancer research and will donate the proceeds to Baylor University. 

“Watching my friends lose family members they were very close to is so tough to see,” Hull said. “Losing some friends over it as well. Friends I’ve had or that I currently have that have had and beat cancer. In a way, you are powerless. Supporting them in their fight gives us a sense of power.”

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and for Hull, it hits home because he has a family member in the fight. 
 
“Right now, my aunt currently has breast cancer, so it’s pretty close to home for me to have a fundraiser/promotion going like this for my racing team and my car because she’s the first person on either side of my family to have cancer that we know of,” Hull said. “That is hard for me. One of my crewmembers lost his mother to breast cancer. And then you just see it. You hear about it. It really bothers me. I always say that anytime I hear about a death, it seems like seven out of 10 of them are from cancer.”

Hull is always up for a good fight, and having an 11,000-horsepower Top Fuel Dragster in his arsenal gives him the perfect weapon to go to battle with. 

“I have a great marketing tool that allows me to help people when possible,” Hull said. “I don’t have any major sponsors that tell me what I can and cannot put on my race car, and so for me, until that happens, I’m going to do with my race car what I want to do with it.”

Hull is looking to raise at least $200,000 for the Baylor Scott & White Center of North Texas, which specializes in breast cancer research. 

Fans and supporters interested in donating for a spot on the race car can email Buddy@buddyhullracing.com with the donation amount, name for the car, and contact information. A Buddy Hull Racing representative will reach out for payment information.

While Hull understands pink is not the most masculine of colors, he quickly learned in life that power could not only be channeled in a color like pink for the fight against a killer but also to fuel determination for positive life choices. 

Hull found an outlet in powerlifting early on in life. 

“Powerlifting was something that was an outlet,” Hull said. “At a young age, I discovered that I was much stronger than most people my age. At nine or ten years old, I was more like the strength level of a 13 to 14-year-old, so I harnessed it. I started working out very young and always went to the YMCA. I started going to the gym there at the Y, and by 13 years old, I was competing.

“I just continued until I was 27 years old and decided that I had had enough, not because I was not doing well, I was actually at the peak of my career.

“But because everyone I competed against for all those years was about six years older than me, and their bodies were falling apart, I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m going to stop before I get that way. And before I ruin the rest of my life, I will stop.” 

“I was the pro athlete that got out of the game before their body was destroyed. I always give power lifting the credit for my work ethic and discipline simply because of all kinds of temptations for drugs and alcohol through my teenage years. I never did drugs, of course, and drank a little bit; that’s what kids do, especially in my age group, but it kept me away from getting in trouble because I knew that bad food, bad drinks, and drugs would detour my progress at powerlifting, so it led me to a cleaner lifestyle naturally.

“And what that did essentially is create a lot of discipline in me because when everyone else sometimes is out partying, having a good time, experimenting with this or experimenting with that, I wasn’t doing that. So thank God for powerlifting and thank God for the discipline that it instilled in me by chance. And then also, too, the unnatural discipline with certain foods I was eating all the time and massive amounts of food and sometimes forcing myself to stay in bed and sleep more hours so my body could recover.”

Hull said this focus in his athletic life carried into his professional life, and by 27 was the vice president of a Fortune 500 company. And by the time he was 40, he owned multiple businesses. 

“I’m forever thankful for those days and for those people, all lessons it taught me, all the places I traveled,” Hull said. “I’ve lost some friends over the years, too, that I competed with, and that breaks my heart. So again, I’m very thankful that I had that time period.”

While Hull understands his efforts with a pink dragster to bring awareness might be just a ripple in a lake, he knows that every detail matters in fighting cancer just like it did in powerlifting. 

“That’ll be money to research all different types of cancer, not just breast cancer,” Hull said. “It’s nothing like we’re being particular and we don’t want to promote, or we don’t want to just put it all to breast cancer, but I like the idea of giving it for all of cancer research, so it’s going over to Baylor.”

Hull felt like he needed to be different in his approach with a sea of pink at the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series events in October. 

“My pink car is unlike any other pink car that’s ever been wrapped and displayed,” Hull said. “I did my fair share of research online looking at NASCAR, Indycar, drag cars, looking at anything I could to, first of all, verify that my idea wasn’t one that’s already been used and it wasn’t. So I like to be a little different but not weird.”

“I wanted it to be something that kids, especially little girls, could get behind when they see it from the stands; the thing’s just so cool. And it's something that a woman could see and appreciate as well. There’s some feminine aspects to it, but it’s still very masculine in terms of the approach of the design. Men can relate because it’s camo. I wanted my car to be unique, and I think we hit the nail on the head. I think it’s pretty cool.”