ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997 TAG: 9704170054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK THE ROANOKE TIMES
Robert ``Red'' Byron took the checkered flag at Martinsville Speedway in September of 1947.
Raymond Parks remembers Martinsville Speedway, but the years and the races are like the stock cars still running today on the half-mile oval.
They run together at times.
Parks was the owner of the cars that finished 1-2 in the first race at Martinsville. He's 82 now, and has almost as many miles on him as speedway chairman Clay Earles, 83, whose track is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the Goody's Headache Powder 500 for Winston Cup cars Sunday.
Virginia-born Robert ``Red'' Byron, racing out of Anniston, Ala., and Atlanta, drove to the first victory. The favored Bob Flock was a very disappointed second. Flock led 48 of the 50 laps, then fell behind his Parks teammate when his radiator was knocked loose, began leaking and the engine overheated.
``Those were Ford Coupes,'' recalled the pioneering Parks in discussing the cars of the two late drivers from his Atlanta home. ``They were good cars.''
Of a $2,000 purse on Sept. 7, 1947, Parks' drivers took $500 and $375. The purse for Sunday's race is more than $1.24 million.
``Even if you finished 1-2, you were in the hole by the time you paid the bills,'' Parks said. ``In those days, I paid all of the expenses and split the purses 50-50 with the drivers. I kept the trophies.''
Earles thought he and fellow track owners Sam Rice and Henry Lawrence would be looking at red ink from that first race. What they got was red dust.
``A lot of tracks were like that then,'' Parks said.
Earles and fellow promoter Bill France, the late NASCAR founder, had 20,000 gallons of oil, calcium chloride and water poured on the red-clay surface.
``We thought we had a dust-free track,'' Earles said. ``It turned out to be the dustiest place I've ever seen. When the race started, it looked like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb. I'm sure you could see the dust cloud for miles.''
Martinsville had a paying crowd of 6,013, and not nearly that many seats - only 750 of a proposed 5,000. What the crowd witnessed was the roots of NASCAR, which ran its first sanctioned series in 1949. Parks was the car owner of what would today be known as the first Winston Cup champion, with driver Byron, who was appropriately nicknamed considering the color of dirt that covered him after the first Martinsville victory.
``We had changed to Oldsmobile by 1949, an 88 Olds coupe,'' Parks said. ``Bob Flock drove a Hudson club coupe.''
Byron's championship car, No.22, was sponsored by Parks Novelty Machine Co., which rented pinball machines to Atlanta establishments. Parks owns liquor stores but has sold his cigarette manufacturing company. The former car owner still goes to his office, Parks Realty & Investment Co., daily. He also goes to a nearby barbershop every day for a shave.
When Byron won the first NASCAR title for Parks, the car owner was about to get out of the sport. He had been in racing since 1939, and owned cars through 1950, except during World War II, where Parks served in the Army and was in the Battle of the Bulge. Byron flew 57 missions over Europe and was shot down and seriously wounded. An injury to his left leg left Byron with a bad limp, but it didn't hurt his driving.
Parks' cars dominated at tracks in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania. Byron won the first NASCAR-sanctioned race at the Daytona Beach road course in 1948. His cars won 11 races there.
``There was no racing from 1942-45,'' said Parks, who upon his return from the war opened liquor and convenience stores in Atlanta and also owned the novelty company. ``We started back in 1946, when Red and Bob ran for me.''
Parks, a native of Dawson County, Ga., got into racing when Ray and Lloyd Sey wanted him to build them a car. Parks hired legendary mechanic Red Vogt, and Parks put the Seys onto local tracks in 1939 in a '34 roadster.
``We called Red a mechanic,'' Parks said. ``He'd be a crew chief today. He was our crew - one man.''
Parks was a 1995 inductee in the National Motor Sports Hall of Fame at Darlington, S.C., and last year was honored in similar fashion by Jacksonville (Fla.) Speedway, where his cars won numerous championships.
He drove only once.
``We were in Langhorne, Pa.,'' Parks said. ``We always carried three cars to a race in case something happened, and that time I drove one. Well, Red Byron's car went out of the race, and I ended up giving him mine to finish in because he needed the points. That was the start and end of my driving.''
Although Parks left the sport behind after NASCAR's second official season, he hasn't stopped following a sport in which he was one of the first success stories.
``I never miss Daytona in February,'' Parks said. ``I remember seeing Clay Earles over the years at different tracks, and I'm glad to know he's still involved. I never thought stock-car racing would be what it is now. I watch most of the races on TV. There was no TV back when we started.
``They were stock cars, strictly stock. The only safety about them was a chain on the door, or maybe leather straps. A lot has changed in 50 years.''
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: FILE PHOTO. 1. Raymond Parks was a pioneer in stock carby CNBracing. He paid all the expenses and the mechanics. And he always
split the purse 50-50 with his drivers. Parks is 83 and lives in
Atlanta. 2. FILE PHOTO. Robert ``Red'' Byron drove for Raymond Parks
in the late 1940's. He won the first race at Martinsville Speedway
in September of 1947. His teammate, Bob Flock, finished second. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING