A Man Admired
Raymond and J.B. Day at Day’s racing banquet hall and museum in South Carolina.
Gordon Pirkle, GARHOFA member and owner of the famous Dawsonville Pool Room, grew up knowing Raymond.
“He is my hero,” he told us. “If you were looking for the right words for a gentleman, it would be Raymond Parks. You can take racing away and pretend it never happened. I would feel the same about the man. A person is only as good as his word and his work. I know of no one he has ever disappointed.”
Longtime friend, businessman and former race team owner Jimmie Day of Greenville, South Carolina has been around Raymond for years.
“I wholeheartedly believe today if he wanted to…he could build a winning team again,” Day said. “The man still has all the ingredients.”
“Raymond had great equipment and drivers and knew how to manage them,” said the late Jack Etheridge, who won more races in 1946 than any other driver. “He knew how to assemble a package. I could name 10 drivers off my head who could have won consistently under Raymond Parks.”
Raymond Parks has had stake in many ventures since the old days. Some mentionable. Things listed as beverage stores, service stations, vending services, garages, ice cream parlors, billboards, rental property, music boxes, nightclubs (when they had to wear pasties), nightclubs (when they didn’t), and new car dealerships.
He has been a race driver (on and off the track), part owner of a racetrack (the old Ashville-Weaverville Speedway) and a racing magazine (Speed Age). Some done for profit, some done for friendship.
Ed Clark, president of Atlanta Motor Speedway, Trish Brown, daughter of Smokey Yunick and American Racing Pioneer Award representative Chris Rashke present Mr. Parks with that award in November of 2001. Photo by Eddie Samples
He has a gift for dignity and common sense. His early environs however included an array of Georgia boys who unwittingly started racing history by strapping themselves into machines they built solely for speed, bragging rights and just for the Hell of it.
Their safety and courage depended on such things as recapped street tires, wooden fences, leather football helmets, and sets of brass bookends that Rocky the squirrel couldn’t crack.
Bill France took this ancient formula to the bank and grew one of the most powerful sporting organizations in the world.
The morning Raymond Parks left home that day in 1928, the fourteen-year-old kid didn’t know for sure where or what he was wading into, but the waves he’s made across the racing world are still felt today. He continues to be a great ambassador for the sport he loves and helped steady so long ago.
The “Cat with the Hat” hasn’t missed a beat.
Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the February 2002 edition of the Pioneer Pages magazine. Later in 2002, Raymond Parks would become one of the first eight inductees into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame, along with cousins Lloyd Seay and Roy Hall, and team mechanic Red Vogt. Mr. Parks would remain a lifelong supporter of the GRHOF. Mr. Parks was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2009, and was honored by his hometown of Dawsonville and Dawson County in August of 2009 with ‘Raymond Parks Day’ being declared in both. Mr. Parks passed away in his sleep on Father’s Day, June 20, 2010.
Eddie Samples is a racing historian and writer, and is the son of champion stock car racer and Georgia Racing Hall of Famer Ed Samples.
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