BACK TO GALLERIES
Raymond Parks’ legend lives on with film, photos
By | Published: January 18, 2017 17
NASCAR Productions
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NASCAR Productions
Raymond Parks' name will ring out in Friday night's NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony some 80 years after he first became involved in stock-car racing's rough-edged formative years. For a long time, very little existed about Parks but the stories themselves -- but a chance discovery nearly 20 years ago changed that.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
Ken Martin, video historian and archivist for NASCAR Productions, first laid eyes on the canisters of film in 1997.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
'It's like a dream when you see these things,' Martin says. 'I don't know how you'd call it anything but like the Holy Grail of the sport.'
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
For stock-car history buffs, the magnitude of the footage's unearthing is difficult to comprehend.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
No other video footage of Parks' pioneering of star drivers -- Roy Hall, Lloyd Seay and Bill France Sr. -- is known to exist.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
'I have to say, I'm awestruck, and I don't get awestruck by a lot of things,' said Winston Kelley, the NASCAR Hall of Fame's executive director.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
That the videos are brilliantly shot in color, a technology still in its infancy and not widely available before World War II, affirms the notion that Parks' approach to running a top-shelf racing team was far ahead of its time.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
Scroll on for more historic photos of Raymond Parks and his era of racing.
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Getty Images
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Getty Images
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family
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Courtesy of Raymond Parks family