Parks' mantra was simple: Be the fastest and the best

At 95, Raymond Parks is the living embodiment of NASCAR's history. The eldest of 16 children, Park left his Dawsonville, Ga., home at 14 and began hauling moonshine. A savvy businessman from an early age, Parks moved to Atlanta, opened a service station which served as a front for his liquor distribution system, and became extremely wealthy, allowing him to fund a racing operation well ahead of its time.

He also ran afoul of the law on occasion, getting a three-month jail term for hauling corn liquor in the family's 1926 Model T Ford and then later serving nine months in a federal penitentiary in 1937. He also fought in the Battle of the Bulge as a member of the U.S. Army during World War II. But his biggest contribution to NASCAR, in addition to his long-standing friendship with Bill France, was his insistence on bringing class to a sport still rough around the edges.

Hall of Fame bio

Raymond Parks is one of stock-car racing's earliest -- and most successful -- team owners. His pairing with mechanic Red Vogt produced equipment good enough to dominate the sport in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Red Byron won the first Cup Series title in 1949 in a Parks-owned car.

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Grady Rogers, who has known Parks most of his life, was kind enough to answer these questions.

Q: How did you get to know Raymond Parks?

Rogers: I grew in a neighborhood where Raymond was basically the honorary mayor of Northwest Atlanta. He was the guy that people went to and looked for, and he took care of them because of the goodness in his heart. My mother and father, as well as my grandmother, knew Raymond. So as I was growing up, he was a regular in the neighborhood.

Q: How did he get started in racing?

Rogers: The way Raymond Parks got into racing is a story that goes way back to 1938. His two cousins came from Dawsonville and were in his employ as whiskey shippers. They wanted to enter a car at the first race at the Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta, out at the fairgrounds. Raymond, thinking it would be a fun thing to do, went ahead and upfronted the money for the whiskey car they had, to be outfitted for racing. That was done by Red Vogt in Atlanta. Lloyd Seay, Roy Hall and Raymond took it out to the racetrack that day.

And as the story goes, for the very first time, he met a guy by the name of Bill France from Florida, who was racing that day. At the end of the day, Lloyd Seay won the race and Raymond said he caught the racing bug. And he still has in his possession today, the trophy from that race. That racing bug transferred all the way through the '30s and into the '40s, to the formation of NASCAR.

Q: Bill France once said Lloyd Seay was the best driver he ever saw. Is that Raymond's opinion, too?

Rogers: Over the years, when asked who was the best driver he ever employed, Raymond said his cousin, Lloyd Seay, had the general knack for handling the flathead '39 Fords, which was the predominant racecar back then because of his learning to drive on the backroads of Georgia, hauling moonshine.

Q: Lloyd Seay was killed in an incident involving moonshine, correct?

Rogers: That's exactly right. He was shot to death by his uncle in Dawsonville over a $5 sack of sugar. The uncle was convicted and eventually served 20 years, I believe.

Q: After the war, things picked up for Raymond. How did he get involved with NASCAR?

Rogers: At the Streamline Hotel during the organizational meeting, Raymond was present, along with Red Byron and Red Vogt. The photo on the roof of the Streamline doesn't show Raymond as an attendee, but he was in the hotel. And the pictures generally prove that out, as he was with a cute blonde.

Q: In an era when that wasn't necessarily the case, Raymond always had cars that were meticulously prepared. Why was that?

Rogers: That followed suit for Raymond's life. Raymond was one of those guys, by the time he was in his early 20s, had accumulated what back then would have been considered a small fortune in Atlanta. Because he had a strong cash flow, he was always well-dressed and had the finest automobiles -- one or two new Cadillacs a year, with every convenience on them available at the time. And when he went racing, his instructions to Red Vogt were simply, "I want to be the fastest and the best out there. I don't want my cars beat up and looking bad."

That was the way cars were back then. Some people say the way Raymond Parks' cars looked at the racetrack helped to convince Bill France that every car that competed in a NASCAR event should have straight fenders, be painted and have nice numbers. So today's NASCAR is where it is because Raymond brought a nice-looking red and white No. 14 or black No. 22 to the track. (Continued)