Raymond Parks

Billy Carden poses at Daytona Beach with his modified racer prior to an event on Aug. 8, 1948.

We asked Carden how he became acquainted with Mr. Parks.

“Before the war I worked at Atlanta Safety Brake Company.  I rode with a fellow from Mableton to the job.  We worked six days a week, left before daylight and got home late at night, all for seven dollars a week.  Anyway, Raymond would send his brake work over to us.  He had whiskey and lottery cars, which were always on the road, and we provided good service.  Plus we delivered him his cars.  I had to fight with the boss’s son to do these trips.”

“Raymond would tip us five dollars a delivery.  It as always a bummer if he wasn’t at the station when I got there,” he laughed.  “Raymond’s place was where Buckshot Morris also worked as a mechanic.  Parks had a good staff of employees.  He also had Cross-eyed Willie, a black mechanic.  Pitiful, pitiful looking man.  Cross-Eye got me to hold something he was about to hit with a hammer one day.  I said ‘Are you hitting where you’re looking, C.W.?’ When he said yes, I told him to give me the hammer.”

Carden said that at that time, he was not into racing.

“No, my next job was as manager of a Firestone Tire Company in West End Atlanta and Ed Samples had a garage next door.  This was around 1942 or ’43.  At the time, Ed was selling red tag (government) whiskey to clubs in Georgia’s dry counties.   I had left my car for him to work on one day, and borrowed one of his to drive home.  The next morning I got caught for speeding.  The car windows were fogged and I never knew I was being chased all the way from Mableton.  They found the trunk was loaded with whiskey and carried me to the Big Rock (city jail).  I got Roy Bell to get me out and everything went okay, especially since the liquor was legal.  Hell, if he had told me the car was loaded I would have never sped in the first place.”