At 44 years old, Paul Candies Jr. joined the fraternity that made his father a legend.

He’s officially a bona fide drag racer and has the competition license to prove it.

The second-generation Candies had grown up around drag racing, surrounded by his father’s long-running nitro team partnership with Leonard Hughes, but earlier this week Paul Jr. made a name for himself thanks to drag racing school instructor Frank Hawley.

At 44 years old, Paul Candies Jr. joined the fraternity that made his father a legend.

He’s officially a bona fide drag racer and has the competition license to prove it.

The second-generation Candies had grown up around drag racing, surrounded by his father’s long-running nitro team partnership with Leonard Hughes, but earlier this week Paul Jr. made a name for himself thanks to drag racing school instructor Frank Hawley.

“It was my mom that kept me from driving,” admitted Paul Jr., who had never driven a race car before.  “It was probably the only thing that I ever listened to her about. Before my dad was with Hughes, the guy that drove dad’s car was killed in an accident. My mom was pregnant with me at the time that happened and then always had that fear that something might happen to me should I ever race myself.”

There aren’t many things that will inspire a man to go against his mother’s wishes, but for Candies, the lure of a limited-edition, factory-produced 2010 Cobra Jet provided an overwhelming enticement.

“When the deal came along that we were going to be able to get a 2010 CJ, I thought, ‘are we just going to buy it and park it or race it?  

“Do we get somebody else to drive it or what are we going to do with it? I got to thinking, you know what? I’m going to go race this thing myself for a little bit. We chose to go with the Super Stock option on the CJ and that’s the class I’m going to run.”

And for Candies, making the trip to Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School to earn a license was the next logical step.

“I didn’t want to try to get a license on my own and have a bunch of different people tell me all kinds of things to do,” he said. “I wanted to go to the professional and do it right from the start. That professional is Frank Hawley.
 
“Even though I was involved with drag racing all my life, although I never competed, I still went to the school with the true novice attitude. If Frank were to tell me I was doing something wrong, then I was doing it wrong. And if I was doing something right, then I must be doing a good job paying attention like the other students in the class. I wanted to learn to drive properly right from the start and I knew I would learn the correct way from Frank at his school.”

Candies found out what he’d been missing all of those years.

“Wow, it was great,” he exclaimed. “Even though I got my license during the regular class part, I decided to make an extra run at the end.  I’m somewhat of a thrill-seeker and I could have sat there all afternoon and said “Put me back in the car and let’s go again”. At some point I want to do my crossover license in their dragster, too. My plans are, down the road, to build a Top Dragster and compete in it.”

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