Raymond Parks, 1st NASCAR Championship Winner, Dead at 96

Raymond Parks, the man that built what has been considered the first great team in NASCAR, died on Sunday at age 96. Aside for owning the first true team in NASCAR, Parks also helped create the competition, being a part of the now famous meeting at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach, and was the winner of the sport's first two championships with his Overseas Motorsports.

"The NASCAR community is saddened by the passing of Raymond Parks," NASCAR chairman Brian France said in a statement. "Raymond was instrumental in the creation of NASCAR as a participant in the historic meeting at the Streamline Hotel in Daytona Beach. He was also our first championship owner. Raymond is a giant in the history of NASCAR and will always be remembered for his dedication to NASCAR."

Parks was born in 1914 in Dawsonville. By the time he was 14, he began a moonshine operation which cost him a nine-month stint in the federal penitentiary in Chillicothe. He was saved, if one can say that, by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Parks was one of the over 500,000 US soldiers who took part in the Battle of the Bulge, the last great German offensive in Europe. After returning to the US, he used his Prohibition-era connections and expertise to set up a real estate and vending machines empire. The money he made here, as well as his passion for cars, led him to the Streamline Hotel, the place where the sport was born. He was the last living member of the original crew which gave birth to NASCAR.