The Godfather of Stock Car Racing

Written by Gerald Hodges — The Racing Reporter          Thursday, December 14, 2006

In every sport, there are those who excel and become synonymous with their given profession.

If one were to list the all-time greats in stock car racing, 91-year-old Raymond Parks of Atlanta, Ga., though originally from the hills of north Georgia, would be at the top.

Bill France is often referred to as the founder of NASCAR, but that is a myth. A mechanic named Red Vogt, who worked for Parks in Atlanta, is the one who suggested the name, according to his son, Tom Vogt.

In a 2000 interview, Parks said France often called on him for advice and money in the 1940s and early ’50s.

Stock car racing didn’t have its origins with NASCAR. It is a Southern sport that came into being during the Great Depression. Folks who lived in rural areas couldn’t travel into the cities for a baseball game or movie, simply because there weren’t enough large towns.

The roads were rough, transportation was limited, and since smaller towns rarely had a theater, families were forced to visit, or sit around home.

For those people who were lucky enough to live near an enterprising farmer who would turn a cow pasture or empty field into a racetrack, then they had something extra and exciting to watch on Sunday.

“Had I stayed in north Georgia, I would surely have wound up like some others, including kinfolks, as a drunk, or in prison,” said Parks.

Parks’ first brush with the law occurred near Dawsonville, Ga. He was stopped by the local sheriff and spent three months in jail for hauling corn liquor in his family’s 1926 Model T Ford, when he was just 14 years old.

After being released, Parks left home and worked hard in the whiskey-making business in the hills between Dawsonville and Atlanta, and saved his money.

Two years later, at the request of an uncle, he moved to Atlanta to help run Hemphill Service Station. But it wasn’t just the idea of an honest job that appealed to Parks. His uncle also ran a part-time bootlegging business.

While NASCAR and the France family have attempted to distance themselves from those early moonshiners and rowdy race car drivers, they forget who started it all.

Within a couple years after arriving in Atlanta, Parks had made enough money through running and selling illicit alcohol and the numbers racket to buy out his uncle.

Even though Parks was never caught in the act of moonshining or racketeering, the Atlanta police arrested several of his carriers and runners. Parks along with one of his workers, “Bad Eye” Shirley, pleaded guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence.

The pair spent a year in the same federal penitentiary in Chillicothe, Ohio, that Junior Johnson would later wind up in. Parks and “Bad Eye” were released in 1937.

Parks’ racing career began in 1939 after being encouraged by two of his cousins, Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall, who often hauled moonshine. Both were also anxious to test their driving skills in the races that were springing up around Atlanta and north Georgia.

Drivers who were in the business of delivering illegal whiskey didn’t know they were also “in training.”

Desiring to help Seay and Hall, Parks went looking for the best mechanics he could find. He finally located two men who many considered the best in the business. They were Red Vogt and Buckshot Morris.

Vogt’s garage on Hemphill Avenue in Atlanta was soon to become the headquarters for drivers needing that extra edge in their racing machines.

“Racing was a lot different back then,” continued Parks. “It was really just getting started. I guess Lakewood (near Atlanta) was the first real track that we raced on. There were dozens of other tracks that would spring up in pastures or on farms, with just some fence wire separating the fans from the racing.

“Sunday afternoon was a time that most people relaxed. It was normal for those who had fast Fords or other type moonshine cars to want to get together. They might decide to go out on a highway outside of town and see who had the fastest car.

“Other times, they would find some farmer that would let them go out in his pasture. Maybe it was one or two cars, but usually it was several. And when the cars revved up, the local people would always be there.”

Parks won his first race in 1938 at Lakewood (Ga.), with Lloyd Seay as his driver in a 1934 Ford.

Seay and Hall each won their share of racing, but Seay died on Sept. 2, 1941, after being shot in the stomach, apparently after an argument over a moonshine deal.

World War II shut down Parks’ operations and after serving in Europe with the 99th Infantry Division, he was discharged in 1946, and returned to racing.

Because of his successful business, Parks Novelty Co., which included slot machines, jukeboxes, pool tables and cigarette vending machines, Parks was able to fund his racing ventures better than anyone else at the time.

“Red (Vogt) was one of the best racing mechanics I’ve ever known,” said Parks. “He did all the work and whenever he thought we needed anything, the money was there.”

His other drivers included Red Byron, NASCAR’s 1949 champion, Bob Flock, Frank Mundy and Curtis Turner.

Roy Hall won a June 30, 1946, stock car race at Daytona. Bill France, who was driving at the time, said, “Give that boy some tools and he could make a covered wagon do 60.”

At the end of the 1951 season, Parks called it quits.

“It was money, that’s what it was,” said Parks. “I loved racing, but I had to make a living. My business was doing well, but I was splitting the purses with the drivers and paying all the expenses, including parts, and my money was coming up shorter each week.”

As long as drivers race for a NASCAR championship, Parks will be remembered as the man whose cars won the first title.

During a 1994 interview, Dale Earnhardt Sr. called Parks “the sport’s unsung hero.”

Parks was always a “gentleman” car owner. He owned some of the best cars built just before and right after World War II, and the impact he had on forming NASCAR was great.

Raymond Parks still goes to work every day, even though he doesn’t need to. Most of his legitimate businesses have been sold, except the one liquor store. Stacked throughout the offices are trophies, banners and plaques of races his cars won.

Laying on desks and tables are albums filled with photographs and other memorabilia.

“At the time, I didn’t know what I was getting into,” said Parks. “I might have had a vision, but I certainly never saw where NASCAR was going. It surpassed anything I imagined. I’m just glad to have been in it at the beginning.

“If there’s one thing I regret, it’s the way NASCAR has tried to distance itself from those early drivers. Some of them were as rough as the liquor they hauled, but I always respected them.”

If it hadn’t been for Raymond Parks and a few others, NASCAR would not have survived those first few years.

He helped many other notable racers and deserves to be called, “Godfather of Stock Car Racing.”