[1]Candies and his crew at the nMCA’s Cobra Jet Showdown in Norwalk last August. Photo credit Ford Racing/Mike Yoksich
The exclusive seven-second club for Super Stock racers swore in a new number just over a week ago, when second-generation drag racing figure PB Candies, the son of legendary championship team owner Paul Candies, sailed well into the sevens with his 2010 Super Cobra Jet Ford Mustang at the IHRA’s Division 4 Summit Pro-Am Tour event last weekend at the State Capitol Raceway in Baton Rouge, La.
Candies, with one of the more recognizable names in the sport, had flirted with the sevens in competition for some time, at NHRA and IHRA events and at the Cobra Jet Showdowns hosted by the NMRA and NMCA, but he finally turned the trick in official Super Stock competition in bayou country, clicking off four successive runs under eight seconds, including three 7.88-second runs, with a 7.90 sandwiched between them. Not only was he quick, but the most powerful car in the field was also deadly consistent.
Candies’ best run, a 7.880 at 171.26 MPH (he also topped 176 MPH curing the weekend), was 1.27 seconds under his 9.15-second SS/AAA class index. Candies bowed out of eliminations in the first round on both days of the divisional event, but his incredible performance was enough to join John Gallina, John Clegg, and Carey Bales as members of the seven-second club. Other racers have been in the sevens, including Ray Skillman, who went sub-eight seconds at the NMCA’s Cobra Jet Showdown last summer, Chris Holbrook in his new Cobra Jet in testing this spring, and Carl Tasca, also in a Cobra Jet, but none came during an official NHRA or IHRA Super Stock event.
Candies’ Mustang, a modified version of the factory-built Cobra Jet Mustang for Super Stock racing, is powered by a 5.4L supercharged small block. If our internal databases — and by that we mean our memories — serve us correctly, Candies’ 7.880 is the quickest Super Stock run ever.