Paul’s Sons Continue Their Father’s Illustrious Tradition

By Whit Bazemore

Imagine you are PB Candies, the first son of the late Paul Candies, owner of one of our sport’s most successful and polished professional racing teams, Candies and Hughes. You are part of a tightly knit family with substantial wealth, but despite that, you grow up in a humble town, Des Allemands, Louisiana, in a humble house just like all of the other houses in the neighborhood. Your dad is an incredibly smart business owner, operating one of America’s premier marine transportation businesses. Your mom is as sweet as can be, but also tough as nails and doesn’t shy away from making—or enforcing—the rules of the household. Your dad takes you and your younger brother Brett, to the races whenever possible, but it’s never often enough for you. Nevertheless, you grow up surrounded by drag racing. The stars of the sport break bread at your house and stay at the race shop in nearby Houma, a place you try to get to every day after school. Playboy Richard Tharp, who drove for your dad in the late ’70s and early ’80s, probably exposed you to some—ahem—questionable experiences before you had even started high school, but he also exposed you to the proper way to drive a Top Fuel Dragster and how to win the U.S. Nationals. Another of your dad’s great drivers, the quiet and reserved Mark Oswald, exposed you to a work ethic with mechanics that was second to none. He also showed you how to win two Funny Car championships in a single year, which your dad’s team did in 1984, claiming both NHRA and IHRA Funny Car world titles.

In a sport where generational torch passing is commonplace, one could assume that as the son of Paul Candies, you were destined to become a successful Funny Car or Top Fuel driver (it was written in the stars), except it didn’t actually happen that way. The respect instilled in you for your family meant that when your mother said no to nitro cars you listened and obeyed.

To understand why, we have to go way back to 1965, when Paul Candies Sr. partnered with Q-Ball Wale, a popular, fun-loving Louisiana mechanic and an excellent driver, in a front-motored TF dragster. Teamed with Paul, Q-Ball had a bright future in Top Fuel racing, until the partnership ended tragically with a crash at Bob Harmon Memorial Raceway in Monroe, Louisiana, on a muggy Saturday night in July 1965. Racing against Bobby Langley in the Scorpion, Q-Ball’s chute didn’t open, and he went off the end of the track into a ravine where he suffered a fatal neck injury. Drag racing was a very rudimentary and extremely dangerous sport back then, much more so than now. Your mom, pregnant with you at the time, and dad were devastated. Once you were born, it was understood that you would not subject your family to the kind of tragedy that had befallen Q-Ball.

Fast forward 40 years, PB Candies is 40 years old, a family man firmly entrenched in the family transportation business. He decides to buy his dad a new Drag Pak Challenger. It had been nearly 14 years since the fabled Candies and Hughes Funny Car team had last raced, but for PB, racing was still in the blood. At the 2010 NHRA Cacklefest (Bowling Green, Kentucky) where PB, Brett, Paul and a handful of the family’s closest racing friends were cackling the original Wale and Candies T/F dragster driven by Q-Ball, PB presented his dad with a rendering of a current Super Stock Dodge Challenger with a paint scheme reminiscent of the early ’70s Candies and Hughes ’Cuda Funny Car. “It was a tribute car to my dad,” says PB. “Dad was funny about it at the time, though. He said, ‘What are ya’ll giving me a drawing of a race car for?’ But dad loved the idea of us going racing again, and remarked if we were going to do it, we were going to do it right.”

And do it right they have. The famous Candies and Hughes name was retired, and instead, Candies Family Motorsports adorns the sides of all of the cars. The Boys—as PB and Brett are known— started racing in March of 2010, first with a couple of Roush-prepped Cobra Jet Mustangs, then the Challenger, and later, COPO Camaros.

NHRA Super Stock and Stock racing are big business, not to mention extremely competitive, with some teams seemingly having the resources and the professionalism of the best fuel teams of just a few years ago. The Candies Family Motorsports team is one of the most professional and best equipped, regularly fielding a fleet of four or five cars for PB and Brett to race at select national events and NHRA Division 4 races. Each has a Super Stocker and a Stocker plus a spare, all of the parts they could ever need and the help of Roush engineer Kyle Carrothers. The team has a full-time crew chief in Jim Dupuy, the highly respected former fuel tuner who manages the day-to-day operation of the team. PB is very hands-on and works alongside Jim at the races and whenever possible at home.

Of the many cars in the Candies’ stable, this Challenger is by far PB’s favorite, despite the fact the blue Cobra Jet is the quickest Super Stocker in history, first running a 7.85/170 mph at Indy in 2014, and later a 7.80 at an unbelievable 178 mph in 2015, making PB the fastest Super Stock racer ever. “The Cobra Jet is a great race car, and I love the fact it’s so fast, but the Challenger has sentimental value to me, especially since dad passed,” says PB. “I bought it for him as a Father’s Day present, so we could race it together, and he really liked it.”

While the Dodge itself is a tribute, in a way, the entire Candies Family Motorsports team is also an ongoing tribute to Paul. You only have to look at the operation to see that PB and Brett share the same approach to racing as their dad did. Everything is first class, and yet it is not a “money is no object” type of operation—far from it, in fact. “We fund it to be competitive and to do what is necessary, but we aren’t unlimited,” laughs PB. “My dad approached racing like a business, especially later in his career, and we try to do the same now.” Which leads to the inevitable question: Would PB and his brother consider going fuel racing? “The thought is always there, following dad’s footsteps, but there are two things to consider: one, making the commitment to do it, and two, getting the outside funding to do it properly. Without the proper funding, we wouldn’t even consider doing it—not interested.”

Given the current business climate at the top levels of NHRA racing and the difficulty some teams have getting fully funded, combined with the commitment both PB and Brett have to Otto Candies, LLC, it seems unlikely that race fans will once again see the Candies name on the side of a T/F or F/C. But watching the boys compete in sportsman racing, especially seeing PB in the SS Challenger, is close enough for some. It does spark memories of the great Paul Candies and the golden era of drag racing.

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Brother Brett

The latest incarnation of Candies’ race team was PB’s idea, according to younger brother Brett. “PB was the one who wanted to race. He bought a Cobra Jet and only after I had sat in it, I thought, ‘hmmm, I might have to get me one of these.’

“But Mom was pretty skeptical when PB first started in the white car, then PB got the Dodge and I got in the white car, and I’m not too sure she really liked both of us racing at all. But once dad got involved, he didn’t miss much, and by that point, she got a little more comfortable. It’s like they’re grown men type of thing…

“Growing up, I wanted to race. A cool thing my dad did—very cool, actually—was when I graduated from college in 1990, he said, ‘Son, you can have a Rolex or you can go to a racing school.’ So I went to a couple of racing schools. I really liked it, but then we stopped racing for a few years after the Motorcraft deal. That was at the time I was thinking, ‘Do I want to drive one of these things; can I drive one?’ But also, we started working right about then, and dad said once, ‘Boys, we know we can make money with the boats, but we’re not too sure we can make money in this drag racing deal.’ So we focused on our business, which I think was smart. When we came back [with the Smoking Joes] we [PB and Brett] were pretty much committed to the business by that point.

“One of the coolest things I’ll never forget was my first U.S. Nats driving in 2011. We had just switched the white Cobra Jet to the small blower, and in the class we were in we weren’t the fastest guys. It came down to the class final and we borrowed a chiller from Allen Wade and rolled up there with it on ice. I left on the guy; he still went quicker than us, but we ran a tenth quicker than we had and won class by a minuscule margin. Herb McCandless [Mr. 4 Speed] was there in tear-down talking to my dad. He came over and told me, ‘Let me tell you something, son. I’ve seen your dad win a lot of races, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him as excited as he is now.’ You know, that’s not winning the U.S. Nats, but winning class there is a big thing. It was the first time PB and I had won anything at Indy, and it was awesome to have Herb say that. It is a standout memory that dad was so happy.

“Goal number one is to win an NHRA national event. Actually, I have yet to win a divisional, either, so either one really. I don’t care; I just want to win one of them. We have two national event runner-ups, and five or six divisional runner-ups, lots of class trophies, so the cars are fast.

“It’s really part-time for us; it’s a hobby. We just don’t race enough like some of these other guys. We’re getting closer; we are, but some of these guys race every weekend, even in Stock and Super Stock. We’re eight or 10 times a year. We’d both be way better if we raced more often, but I’m not sure we can do it more. We have real jobs and a business to run.

“In five years, I’d like to have won some races. And I’d be happy if my boys [Cade and Devin] were racing by then. I’d really like that, to be racing with them and PB.

“Dad drove us to be successful in the corporate world and that is our main focus.”

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