Drag Illustrated Issue 129, January / February 2018 | Page 57

DIALED IN
Sister Act
Hailey & Camryn Hawkins Excel in
PDRA Pro Junior Dragster
By Van Abernethy
A
lthough the Hawkins sisters
literally grew up at the dragstrip
from the time they were infants,
their love of drag racing didn’t ex-
actly develop at the same time, and
their contrasting personalities can sometimes be
on opposite ends of the spectrum. Hailey, 18, the
oldest of the two by just over a year, was the one
who loved drag racing instantly and wanted to do
it practically every waking second. Camryn, on
the other hand, had early aspirations to become
a model.
“Modeling was too girlie for me!” laughs Hailey,
the original gearhead – and sometimes tomboy
– of the two. If she wasn’t racing or dreaming
about it, she was riding her horse named Rose,
or fishing, another great passion of Hailey’s. To
this day, if you stick a rod and reel in this girl’s
hands she can slay some fish on a moment’s notice.
Meanwhile, Camryn had a vast array of interests
that were sometimes similar to Hailey’s, but other
times completely opposite. Along with her model-
Ja n u a r y / F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 8
ing interests, she also played various sports and
cheered before the allure of racing captured her
imagination, just as it did with Hailey.
The girls’ father, Wayne, introduced his daugh-
ters to the sport of drag racing when they were
each just weeks old. Almost every weekend,
Wayne, his wife, Angie, and their two girls were
at a dragstrip somewhere near their home in Rock
Hill, South Carolina. Wayne had progressed far in
Top Sportsman and was even entering his 2002
Camaro in competitive heads-up events when a
devastating crash at North Carolina’s Farmington
Dragway ended his driving career in 2015.
After the crash, Wayne didn’t have the same
passion for driving and consequently had some
pretty strong reservations about allowing his
daughters to continue racing. “It was a real chal-
lenge for me to come to grips with,” says Wayne.
He finally decided he wasn’t going to deprive
them of life while trying to save their lives. “You
can’t live in fear...if you did you couldn’t drive
down the interstate, go to a restaurant or func-
tion at all,” he says.
Wayne did, however, make several suggestions
to the girls after his crash about spending time
at the lake, perhaps buying a boat, or exploring
other activities in an effort to lure them away
from drag racing, but by this time, both girls were
teenagers and had been completely bitten by the
racing bug. “I suppose spending time together at
the lake would have been fun, but it’s not what
DragIllustrated.com
| D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | 57