• Used his leadership and ingenuity as a military tank test-driver for General Motors and served three years with the Army in the South Pacific to help re-organize the Southern California Timing Ass’n (SCTA) in 1937. He became SCTA’s first post-World War II president and later became its general manager in 1947.
• Led a campaign in 1949 that gained permission for hot rodders’s use of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah — setting the stage for SCTA’s Bonneville National Speed Trials.
• Served as editor of Hot Rod magazine and was editorial director for all Petersen Automotive publications — Hot Rod, Motor Trend, Car Craft, Sports Car  Graphic and Motor Life — until he resigned in 1963 to devote full time to the NHRA presidency.
• Founded the National Hot Rod Ass’n in 1951, with emphasis on safety and  the goal of eliminating illegal street racing.
• Was NHRA’s first president, holding the position until 1983 and then serving as chairman of the board until 1999.
• Supervised the sanctioning body’s first major drag race in April 1953 on the edge of a parking lot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, Calif. It was the NHRA’s early test-bed for rules and procedures, and the site later became the permanent home to the Winternationals and its season-ending  Finals.
• Launched in 1955 NHRA’s first national championship, simply called “The Nationals,” in Great Bend, Kan. The event is now held annually at O’Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis.
• Received numerous awards, including enshrinement in 1994 into the American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Ass’n Legends In Racing Hall of Honor. AARWBA, of which Parks was a member, honored him last May as the recipient of its Bob Russo Founders Award.
• Recognized as Car Craft magazine’s Ollie Award in 1969, Popular Hot Rodding magazine’s Man of the Decade in 1972, and the Specialty Equipment Market Ass’n’s (SEMA) Man of the Year in 1973. Was inducted into the SEMA Hall of Fame in 1979 and named recipient of the 2001 Robert E. Petersen Achievement Award. In 2003, Parks was named the Dean Batchelor Lifetime Achievement Award winner by the Motor Press Guild in Los Angeles.
• Became drag racing’s first inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1992 at Talladega, Ala., and in 1993 was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame at Novi, Mich. In 1994, Parks and wife Barbara were co-inductees into the Don Garlits Int’l Drag Racing Hall of Fame at Ocala, Fla.