BURBANK, Calif. -- Wally Parks, an automobile enthusiast who
founded the National Hot Rod Association and helped turn drag
racing into a legitimate sport, has died. He was 94.
Parks died Friday at Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center of
complications from pneumonia, said Michael Hollander, a spokesman
with the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona.
As a test driver for General Motors, Parks started organizing
car races in Southern California's dry lake beds in the 1940s.
"He effectively created drag racing," Hollander said. "These
kids were racing jalopies and he wanted to get them off the streets
and start them racing in an organized manner. He set up a system of
timing and scoring and turned it into a legitimate sport."
As president of the Southern California Timing Association,
Parks set the distance of a quarter of a mile as the standard
length of a drag race.
He formed the NHRA in 1951 out of those loosely organized desert
races. It grew from a simple car club, with Parks' wife Barbara
hand-typing membership cards, into a governing body events across
the nation.
The NHRA's first sanctioned major drag race was held in April
1953 in a parking lot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in
Pomona. The city became the permanent home of the Winternationals
and its season-ending World Finals. The gold trophy given to NHRA
race winners is affectionately called "The Wally," Hollander
said.
Parks was president of the NHRA until 1983, then served as
chairman of the board until 1999.
In the 1950s, he also served as founding editor of Hot Rod
magazine, which chronicled the burgeoning sport.
Born in Goltry, Okla., in 1913, Parks' family moved to Southern
California in the 1920s. He spent three years in the Army serving
in the South Pacific during World War II.
His wife Barbara died in 2005, Hollander said. He is survived by
two sons, Richard and David.