Salute To Wally Parks: From The Pen of Wally Parks: Iconic Mag
Ninth in a series, as told by Richard Parks
By Susan Wade
Richard Parks, the elder of National Hot Rod Association founder Wally Parks’ two sons, has given permission to Thoughts Racing share excerpts from his voluminous compilation of his family’s and father’s history. This is the ninth installment in a tribute to the remarkable man who passed away 15 years ago this September.
Here Richard Parks uncovers his dad’s recollections of the early days of iconic Hot Rod Magazine. . . .
HOT ROD MAGAZINE (2006), by Parks
In Hot Rod’s initial years, [Robert] Petersen and [Bob] Lindsay alternated the listings of their names as Hot Rod Magazine’s Editors and Publishers, with Wally Parks as Technical Advisor, until he was named Editor in November 1949. He labored hard to start and support several organizations that ultimately provided professional stature to the hobby. One of those organizations is today’s enormously successful: National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). Petersen’s support via contents in his magazines was based on the realities of generating reader interests for circulation and activities for the cultivation of new industries and advertising sales. It was Bob Lindsay who provided strong support (and offered the additional loan of $1100 that funded NHRA’s initial founding and incorporation).”
Richard Parks: Dad wrote many versions concerning Hot Rod magazine.
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HOT ROD MAGAZINE(2006), by Parks (for DRIVE Magazine)
In his final editorial column, for the October, 1949 issue of HOT ROD Magazine, co-publisher Bob Lindsay wrote: “Hot Rod Magazine has undergone a change. This month the magazine is sporting a new cover which is indicative of the progress that is being made. More pages have been added, each bringing readers a wealth of information on CARS and what makes them go. Wally Parks, former business manager of the Southern California Timing Association and a longtime advocate of hot rod interests, has taken over editorship of HRM. My years of experience as an SCTA official and organizer gave me the technical background necessary for the position. As editor, writer, artist, and layout man for the Association’s monthly timing meet programs, Parks has been exposed to his share of printer’s ink . . . learning a great deal about the publishing business as he went along.”
That was then, and this is now. But Lookin’ Back, it seems odd that I would still be hunt-and-peckin’ on a keyboard, more than 50 years later, still writing about — what else? — hot rods. It has been a long trip since those days, when World War II was barely over and people were eager to buy new cars, and some of us to build our own. It was a time also when “hot rods” were targeted by media as nuisances — and some legislators were even proposing mandatory minimum weight, and fenders, for hot rod cars. With those of us who ‘believed’, it was a serious challenge. For HOT ROD Magazine it was a crusade on behalf of its readers and their freedom to enjoy a neophyte form of specialized motorsports.
That HOT ROD was an influential asset in overcoming unnecessary restrictions cannot be denied. Its focus on street rods, land speed records and drag racing had a strong influence in protecting many liberties we enjoy today. So it is with an element of special pride that I can look back on those post WW-II years, when we were so avidly trying to protect our rights to run unusual home-built vehicles, odd as they may have seemed.
With its support of street-driven hot rods, dry lake speed trials, the founding of SCTA’s Bonneville Nationals, the formation of National Hot Rod Association, and cultivation of organized drag racing – plus its influence on creating a world of satellite industries that have emerged into SEMA – HOT ROD Magazine was a major contributor right from the word go. Since then we have seen the growth of the National Street Rod Association and its offshoot Goodguys, while drag racing has soared to include hundreds of thousands of contestants running at more than 5,000 sanctioned events annually, with big industry sponsorships galore.
All these are accomplishments almost beyond belief – much credit for which can be traced to Hot Rod Magazine and a 1937 dream shared by two energetic young pioneers, Robert E. Petersen and Bob Lindsay. Lookin’ back on those record achievements isn’t bad at all.
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HOT ROD MAGAZINE (2006), by Parks
Stepping away from my job at Petersen Publishing Company (PPCO), after 14 years, was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever had to make.
It happened in 1963, when I had the enviable role as editorial director of all Petersen automotive magazines, including Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Car Craft, and Sports Car Graphic. Having been associated with the company ever since Hot Rod’s introduction in 1948, it was a separation of longtime friends with whom I had worked in endless projects that was the difficult to face.
First and foremost was Bob Petersen himself, who in those times we called ‘Pete.’ I had known him since 1947 when we met to discuss the prospect of doing a public relations program for the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), of which I was then general manager.
Out of that discussion, as the SCTA had no money, came the idea of presenting a Hot Rod car show, as an endeavor to offset a bad media image hot rods were getting, due to illegal street racing in some areas of Southern California. Pete took the idea to a Publicity Associates group in which he was a member — resulting in the formation of a co-produced Hot Rod Exposition (the first public show of its kind) presented in the Los Angeles Armory at Exposition Park. The show was a success and Petersen’s role as a salesman for booth space and ads for the official program alerted him to the fact there were no magazines in existence that covered hot rod activities and SCTA’s dry lakes racing in particular.
Aggressive in nature as he was, Pete enlisted a friend, Bob Lindsay, in a partnership that led to the publication of Hot Rod Magazine’s first issue and its introduction at the January 1948 Hot Rod Show. Motor Trend was produced the following year, centered on Detroit and the auto manufacturers’ products, with the company’s name changed to Trend, Inc. and other magazines were added, including Car Craft, Sports Car Graphic and Motor Life and Hop Up.
At Pete’s decision to publish Hot Rod, I pledged all the help I could offer to help ensure its success – especially aimed at gaining as much ink for SCTA’s activity as possible. And for awhile I contributed a good portion of HRM’s editorial contents, serving as interpreter of submitted articles and photo identifications. And the close liaison of HRM and SCTA was a ready means for introducing new car features and activities as they developed in other areas.
We were on a roll — circulation was increasing, advertising was healthy, and a whole new industry based on sales of hot rod and performance parts was fast evolving. When the time seemed right, Bob and Pete offered me the job as Hot Rod Magazine’s first official editor — an opportunity I couldn’t resist — and I took it. We had accomplished a lot during my term as SCTA’s manager, and my move to Hot Rod offered new challenges. Our staff at Hot Rod then consisted of Eric Rickman, photographer; Bill Burke, ad sales; Tom Medley, cartoonist-photographer; and our secretary, Ethel Wallace.”
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HOT ROD MAGAZINE RECOLLECTIONS (1998), by Parks
My early tenure as the editor of Hot Rod Magazine probably was among the most rewarding and satisfying periods of my working life. The role afforded me – a dyed-in- the-wool, hands-on hot rod enthusiast — an opportunity to spread the word of how much fun one could gain from doing innovative things with cars. In reality, that was the basic substance of our magazine’s editorial concept — conveying the results of fun things we and other people did with their cars and leading our readers to feel as if they, too, were living a part of the action.”
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HOT ROD MAGAZINE STAFF – 1951 (1996), by Parks
Back in 1951, when the National Hot Rod Association was first formed, HOT ROD Magazine was the main channel of communication that linked the NHRA to its membership. By reporting the activities of NHRA’s members and their clubs, HOT ROD played a pioneering role in the introduction and development of organized drag racing as a fresh new form of American motorsport.
Today, we are pleased to introduce six of the seven members of HOT ROD’s 1951 working staff and to convey our recognition of what they helped to accomplish in those unpredictable early times.
They include Wally Parks, HOT ROD’s first editor, NHRA’s founder and now its board chairman; Don Francisco, the magazine’s esteemed technical editor; Eric Rickman, who as HOT ROD’s photographer was also a member of NHRA’s traveling ‘Safari’ in its mid-fifties tours; Tom Medley, HOT ROD artist, photographer and creator of the Stroker McGurk cartoon series; Bill Burke, who served as the magazine’s energetic advertising sales force, and Barbara Livingston, the HOT ROD staff’s secretary and NHRA’s first office coordinator — now more appropriately known as Barbara Parks.
Al Isaacs, who as HOT ROD’s art director designed NHRA’s original oval insignia, was unable to be here but sends his regards.
These seven all were involved in establishing a foundation on which the National Hot Rod Association was fashioned. And it is our privilege now to introduce them and thank them, for their individual contributions to what we see around us here today.”
An awards ceremony followed. This is the full introductory speech that was given at the World Finals in 1996.
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HOT ROD MAGAZINE’s FIRST DECADE (1997), by Parks
The first draft of Hot Rod Magazine’s First Decade began, “I first met Robert E. ‘Pete’ Petersen when we worked together on the co-production of what was the world’s first Hot Rod Show. He was a member of Hollywood Publicity Associates, a group of unemployed studio workers, and I was general manager of the Southern California Timing Association, an organization of car clubs whose main activity was in the conduct of timed speed trials on dry lake beds in the Mojave desert. In the course of his search for clients, soliciting show booth sales and selling ads for the Hot Rod Show’s program, Petersen was inspired by the absence of a magazine aimed at the growing number of car enthusiasts who were involved in a new hobby of amateur motorsports. So much so, in fact, that he enlisted close friend and fellow Hollywood Associates member Bob Lindsay as a partner and together, with no experience, they set out to create and produce their own new magazine.”
The second draft of Hot Rod Magazine’s First Decade was somewhat different and was rewritten from the first draft only four days later. Dad always had to get every detail correct even if it meant multiple rewrites.
“When I first met Bob ‘Pete’ Petersen in 1947 he was a 19-year-old member of an unemployed studio workers group who had banded together as Hollywood Publicity Associates in search of income sources. I was manager of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) as its one-person staff and we were having difficulties with protecting our hot rodders image due to local media’s focus on illegal street racing. Pete, recognizing the dilemma, saw the SCTA as a prospective client for HPA’s services and contacted me with a proposal. After some discussion in which I assured him that we had the need, but no money, I suggested an alternative plan in which SCTA and the Hollywood (Publicity) Associates group might co-produce a show, featuring cars built by members of SCTA’s twenty car clubs and with HPA handling the promotion, advertising and show-biz details.”