Bob Flock and Red Byron

Bob Flock with wife Ruby and his daughter, Judy, pose in front of the Parks' racer.

With Seay now gone, and Hall on a ‘hit and miss’ schedule with legal problems, Raymond Parks added Bob Flock to the team.  Same Knox told us Bob came to Atlanta from Alabama and helped his younger brother Fonty in the liquor business.

“He was living with me until he met his future wife Ruby,” Sam said.  “She had several restaurants in town and the two simply fell in love.  Raymond knew Fonty and Bob from racing and such, and he knew Ruby as a business friend because of his jukeboxes and cigarette machines.  Parks had long recognized the type driver Bob was on the tracks.”

In an article from National Speed Sport News in 1956, Red Vogt said they brought in Bob Flock officially at the Charlotte Fairgrounds in the summer of 1946.

“I had a car for him (Bill France, Sr.), but he was so busy promoting that I had to get Bob Flock to drive it for me,” Vogt said.

Raymond Parks helps Bill France from his wrecked racer in 1940.

Vogt and France had known each other when they were both mechanics in their hometown of Washington, D.C.  However, stability improved when Raymond turned to Robert “Red” Byron.

Red Byron became a driver for Raymond Parks following World War II. Photo courtesy GARHOFA

Byron, who came from the Talladega/Anniston, Alabama area via Pueblo, Colorado, met with Parks at Vogt’s garage.  He later settled in Atlanta during the late forties.  The two war vets hit it off.

In the summer of 1946, Raymond Parks scored his sixth Daytona win with his ace, Roy Hall.  That would be the last big hurrah for the Dawsonville hot rod.  Who’s to say if he hadn’t had so many legal problems, and could have served more of his sentence time on the track, how far he would have gone?

As for Parks and Red Byron, the two found their work ethics a mutual constant.  With parallel goals and the same age, they were en route to take the sport to the next level.  Byron had been racing since 1932 and whatever he lacked in the psychotic speed department he made up for in smoothness.

“I talked to Red about driving for me and he was all for it,” Raymond said.  “He was well mannered and a likeable man.  His left leg was messed up during the war.  He could walk fairly well, but during a long race his leg would weaken.  Vogt welded a couple of small bolts on each side of his clutch pedal so his foot wouldn’t slide off.  After these ‘fatigue pins’ were in place, he never had any problems on the track.”