Sexpot Candace Rae grew up in fifth gear, literally.
With a drag-racing mother and abundant opportunity to tinker with engines, you could say she loves cars.
“When I was five or six my mom actually took a lawnmower engine and she would put us in the front yard — I have two other sisters — and she would teach us how an engine works.”
By the time she reached 16 she soon discovered her love of Formula 1 racing.
“For me it’s the pinnacle of motorsports,” she says.
Though she’s coy on who her favourite racer is, what thrills her about the upcoming season is the return of the Rain Master.
“This year I’m probably looking most forward to seeing (Michael) Schumacher go behind McLaren because him retiring for three years and coming back is like pulling a Favre.”
When she’s not admiring the fast lane she takes to her blog to sate her political interests that stirred when she moved to Bermuda and was hired by the United Bermuda Party as their deputy coordinator.
“I just fell in love with (politics) because you’re there first hand,” she says. “The party leader at the time, Wayne Furbert, was right there and he was so passionate, so kind.”
Cars, politics and modelling came together when she entered a contest on a men’s magazine site.
While working in Bermuda she came across an F1 article, and in order to read it, she had to register for a magazine website. That included posting a photo.
The editor asked her to enter their ‘Is She Hot?’ contest. Rae was tepid at first, but eventually warmed up to it.
Though she was runner-up she had more hits on her profile page. Eventually she was hired by the magazine and moved to Australia where she began working as their art director.
The beauty from Winnipeg has since been featured in Men’s Health, Playboy, and declared an up and comer worth watching by AskMen.com – which also garnered her a nomination on their list of Top 99 Women of The Year.
The stunner can also add superhero to her resumé with her latest project Redemption; the comic book series which transforms Rae into the world’s most dangerous woman.
If that’s not enough, Rae is also set to appear in a Case Construction campaign across Australia and New Zealand as well as a six-page spread in Ralph – Australia’s top men’s mag later this year.
Keeping the frequent traveller company these days back in Canada is her umbrella cockatoo, Gizmo.
“Most people have a dog or a cat, but I’m not a little dog person. I love my bird,” Rae says.
In Florida for business, she ended up falling for her avian friend while visiting a birdhouse.
“It was funny because the first thing they taught him to say was, ‘I love you’, and I was like ‘You bastards’,” she says, with a laugh.