And to Wally’s credit, he got past my long-haired appearance and incomprehensive eyes (I watched Wally turn into a lizard at least a half-dozen times during the initial job interview) and he hired me on my distorted (somewhat) merit.
Yeah, you say, Wally was an overrated bureaucrat who just happened to fall into a spot where he made a few correct decisions and instant Abner Doubleday. He hired you didn’t he?
Wrong answer. He made brilliant hires: Steve Gibbs, Buster, Chick Cannon, Greg Xakellis, Zimmerman. He recognized loyalty (not always the right thing), but he also recognized diplomacy and racing street smarts. At least I’d like to think so in my case. And because of those skills, the NHRA in its salad days blew off all the competition.
To digress for the second of maybe a half-dozen times: Wally was the first man I ever saw in a suit and tie at a drag race and he struck me as a bureaucrat -- a man in the gray flannel suit-type. But I learned as I got more into the sport, he was not that … somewhat.
When I worked at NHRA, I always had this little angel of paranoia on my shoulder that the old boy would come into my corner of the editorial bay and cut me loose … “Chris, you may know drag racing, but to be honest, I don’t think you’re what the National Hot Rod Association is looking for in terms of long-time employment.”
Never happened, He graded strictly on merit and for 22 years (save for maybe the last five) I had the job of a lifetime. He was a good, decent, honest man whose “no’s” never meant “yes.” You meet your deadline, you do the job because you give a shit about drag racing, get it right, and we’ll be fine.
I won’t wax on endlessly here, but a few things need to be said. There is no doubt that Wally Parks made mistakes and frankly pissed people off.
One of the thorns in my crown concerned Eddie Hill’s first-in-the-fours 4.99 in April of 1988 at track owner and IHRA President Billy Meyer’s fabulous Texas Motorplex. Wally held the position initially that there would be no mention of it; his attitude was– let IHRA’s press corps beat the drum, we’re NHRA and do not do PR work for these guys. I argued that NHRA’s credibility would be greatly affected by blowing this off. Everyone knows DRAGSTER’s a house organ, but let’s not throw it up in neon for a loud laugh. We’re bigger than that. (I got away with it, but nonetheless that was Wally -- NHRA all the way.)
He was LATE on recognizing Fuel, late on Funny Car, and gave away shitty purses until Garlits stood up to him in 1972. The wonderful drag racing godfather, C.J. “Pappy” Hart, long compared with Parks (and with good reason to a degree), ran the first weekly drag racing program at Santa Ana and was the topkick during most of Lions Drag Strip salad days. However, he was not free from error, either. He was the leading force in the nitro ban of 1957 after Emery Cook ran an astounding 166.97 mph at his track in early 1957. He also was never the national force that Parks, or for that matter, Jim Tice was. To Wally’s credit, and, I hope, reinforcing his managerial skills, he quickly snapped up and hired Hart for the Safety Safari when he was retired and sitting at home watching wrestlers Freddie Blassie and Ric Flair in the 1980s.
Parks was that kind of guy. He recognized that certain people fill certain positions better than others and that was a lynchpin in building the organization that ran drag racing and made it legit. Nobody, but nobody, was better than Wally at that.
Jim Tice knew fuel was the way to go when he ran a Fuel Eliminator at the 1958 AHRA Nationals. Wally wasn’t up to snuff in a number of ways … and I won’t pretend it was otherwise. But let’s not kid ourselves here. It was only about 10 years until Tice was buying in talent, while Parks insisted and correctly maintained … no appearance money. If you win one of our races, you can say that you did it in wide-open competition.
Who was Johnny Appleseed? Who spread the gospel of drag racing nationwide in an era when street racers were on the same par as today’s Mara Salvatrucha 13 or the West Side Rolling 60s Crips? Who appeared as a hopeless underdog before local city councils and angry cops, urging them to give the kids a place to race? Wally and the NHRA Safety Safari deserved its rep. Do you think that Tice or Larry Carrier contributed at this level? No, for them it was profit, profit, and profit. Hell, no. Sure, the money factor was there for NHRA, too. We live in a capitalist dictatorship, but it was Wally and those pioneers who made drag racing a national pastime and they did it because they were hooked on the sport … like a junkie going downtown. Not Tice, not Hart … uh, maybe Don Garlits.
Of course, he was dressed in a suit and tie … he knew what social position he held going before these hostile bodies. He HAD to have “the look.” A hat-in-hand posture trying to get a tryout. Look respectable for the boss. Trying to stare down a buncha American Idol “Simons.” And what happened? He … and we … won.
I could regale you all day with stories about Wally, his staff, and me, but I’m not really up for it at the moment. I am genuinely saddened. I’m blue. I know what I’ve written above sounds a little hostile, but Wally wasn’t as blood-sterile as many think.
