Wally Parks

Founder of the National Hot Rod Association

All Photos Courtesy of The Wally Parks Motorsports Museum except where noted.

One could argue that drag racing was born in Goltry, Okla., in 1913, with the birth of Wally Parks, who nearly four decades later would found one of the most successful and influential sanctioning bodies in all of motorsports.

Parks’ family moved to Southern California in the early 1920s. By 1946, Parks, who had worked as a military tank test-driver for General Motors and served three years with the Army in the South Pacific, helped re-organize the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). He became SCTA’s first post-WW-II president and later became its general manager in 1947.

Wally in one of his early Hot Rods

In 1949, with access to suitable dry lake courses fast diminishing, Parks led a campaign that gained permission for hot rodders’ use of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah – setting the stage for SCTA’s Bonneville National Speed Trials.

Having moved from SCTA to the editorship of Hot Rod magazine, Wally had the forum to found the National Hot Rod Association in 1951. “Initially, it was a car clubs activity program, dedicated to safety and the goal of helping overcome the problem of illegal street racing and the damaging image it was casting,” Wally said. With a growing performance equipment industry and a “need for speed” to fulfill, NHRA focused on the development of short-distance acceleration races as a prospective alternative. By creating “order from chaos” with new safety rules and performance standards, Parks helped legitimize the sport from its humble beginnings. He became the NHRA’s first president, holding his position until 1983, and then serving as chairman of the board until 1999.

“We saw an opportunity, and with the help of law enforcement and civic leaders in many locales, we enlisted volunteer car clubs across the country and built the NHRA from the ground up,” Parks said. Barbara, his wife of many years, joined the Hot Rod staff in 1951 as Wally’s secretary. In the NHRA’s formative stages, she suggested its choosing of husband and wife combinations when selecting early NHRA Division Directors – a team effort that paid off with long-lasting bonus results. In the 1960s, when the NHRA put most of its attention on drag racing’s cultivation, Barbara was executive director of an NHRA spin-off organization, the International Car Club Association. The ICCA had a non-racing agenda and produced early rod and custom shows from Seattle to Miami.

The NHRA’s first sanctioned major drag race was held in April 1953 on the edge of a parking lot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, Calif. It was the NHRA’s early test-bed for rules, procedures and later became the permanent home to the Winternationals and its season-ending World Finals (as well as the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum, which opened in 1998).

In 1954, ’55 and ’56, the NHRA sent its Safety Safari across the country, introducing organized drag racing to communities from coast to coast.

The Original Safety Safari Vehicle outside the museum

By 1955, the NHRA staged its first national championship, simply called, “the Nationals,” in Great Bend, Kansas. In ensuing years it moved to Missouri, Oklahoma and Michigan before finally finding a permanent home at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Indianapolis, Ind., in 1961

As Parks’ organization matured, and its membership ranks grew, the sport drew more attention from the casual motorsports fan. The 1960s witnessed the growth of the NHRA through television coverage by ABC’s Wide World of Sports, popularizing drag racing with millions of Americans and transporting the sport from the old dry-lake time trials and abandoned airfields into stadium-style arenas around the country.

Now in its sixth decade, Wally Parks’ creation, the NHRA, is the world’s largest motorsports sanctioning body with more than 70,000 members, 35,000 licensed competitors, and more than 4,000 racing events annually at 130-plus member tracks.

Parks has been honored with numerous awards, including Car Craft magazine’s Ollie Award in 1969, Popular Hot Rodding magazine’s Man of the Decade in 1972, and the Specialty Equipment Market Association’s (SEMA) Man of the Year in 1973, as well as his induction into the SEMA Hall of Fame in 1979, the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993, the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1994, and in 2001, earning the Robert E. Petersen Achievement Award.

“No one envisioned what might happen with our so-called impossible dream,” Parks said of the NHRA’s tremendous success, “but our early ambitions of becoming a respected motorsports entity have been far more rewarding than we could ever have imagined.”

NHRA Honors Wally Parks by Renaming Museum

“Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum” surprise announcement made at his 90^th birthday celebration

Pomona, Calif. (Feb. 8, 2003) – In a fitting honor to the man who founded the NHRA more than 50 years ago, the NHRA Motorsports Museum has been renamed the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum. NHRA President Tom Compton, along with the NHRA and Museum board of directors, made the surprise announcement at a festive 90^th birthday celebration for Parks at the Sheraton Fairplex in Pomona, Calif.

“Wally is the reason we are all here,” Compton told the 500-plus guests. “The Museum is Wally’s dream and I’m proud to announce that we are renaming it the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum. Happy birthday, Wally!”

To thunderous applause, Compton then unveiled the new Museum logo as well as an artist’s rendition of how the new name will look on the building.

Parks spoke later in the evening and thanked everyone for their support. “Everyone points to me as the guy who did it all, but I couldn’t have done with out the help of thousands of people, many of whom are in this room. Your help and vision have make the NHRA what it is today, the largest motorsports sanctioning body in the world.”

The renaming of the Museum was one of many highlights of the evening, which was a major fundraiser and was attended by a who’s who of drag racing, both past and present. Among those in attendance were John Force, Kenny Bernstein, Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Joe Amato, as well as industry and racing luminaries such as Vic Edelbrock, Carroll Shelby, Parnelli Jones, Dan Gurney, Linda Vaughn, Alex Xydias, Ak Miller, Art Chrisman, C.J. Hart, Tommy Ivo, Tom Medley and scores of others. Also on hand were the original Safety Safari team of Eric Rickman, Bud Evans, Chic Cannon and Bud Coons. Wally’s wife Barbara was at his side, along with his brother Kenny.

The festivities started at a reception in the Museum where Wally was given several gifts, including a proclamation from the City of Pomona and a one-off die-cast ’32 Ford Coupe from Mattel’s Hot Wheels.

The party moved the Sheraton where the Museum name-change was announced, followed by Parks being “roasted” by Force, Prudhomme and others. A live auction of memorabilia helped generate more than $30,000 for Parks Museum, most of which -- $23,000 – came from a bidding battle between Force and the Imperial Place Museum’s Richie Clyne for a firesuit worn by Parks. Not surprisingly, Force won.

The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum houses the very roots of hot rodding. Scores of famous vehicles spanning American motorsports history are on display, including winning cars representing 50 years of drag racing, dry lakes and salt-flat racers, oval track challengers and exhibits describing their colorful backgrounds.

The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., PST, with extended hours during NHRA national events. Current NHRA members are admitted free. Admission for non-members is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors 60 and older, $3 for juniors six through 15, and free for children under the age of five. The Museum is also available for private parties, meetings, corporate events, weddings and special group tours. The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum is located at Fairplex Gate 1, 1101 W. McKinley Ave. in Pomona. For further information on special exhibits, museum events or directions, call 909/622-2133 or visit www.nhra.com/museum.

A few of the cars in the Museum

Hugh Tucker Roadster

"Jade Grenade"

Ivo's Four Motor Funny Car

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