Wally's Hauling history

Wally Zale was a great driver who set records for wins all over the Mid-west in the 1930's and early 40's.

When midgets were introduced in 1934, he made the switch to the little doodlebugs and never looked back.

A member of the famous “Chicago Gang,” Zale won the Milwaukee Fairgrounds Championship in 1935.

Parks starts the Road Runners Club in 1937.

Shown here in 1940, Zale's car rightly bears the #1 of a champion as he captured an astonishing 67 feature wins that year.

He won the Chicago Amphitheater Indoor title in 1941 as war clouds threatened the nation."

Wally Zale died tragically on April 25, 1942.

1947: The Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) is formed, meant to organize this growing band of speed fiends.

1949: Goleta, California saw a match race that some refer to as the first official drag race; another is run at Mile Square airfield in Garden Grove.

1950: Now editor of HOT ROD Magazine, Parks discusses an alternative to the lakes racing that SoCal speedsters had enjoyed for decades, “controlled drag racing,” in the April 1950 issue.

1951: The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) is created to “create order from chaos”; the new sanctioning body would also introduce safety and performance standards to legitimize drag racing.

The driver sat on or behind the rear wheels, with the engine far back in the frame. Its first sanctioned race, at Pomona, is held April 1953.

1957: Nitromethane, used as a fuel in top classes, was notorious: it was volatile, and propelled cars to then-unheard-of speeds.

1959: Historic Santa Ana closes, its runway annexed by the airport for expansion.

1960: NHRA expands to accept cars with automatic transmissions.

Think a 421-cube rope-drive Tempest, or a fuel-injected-Corvette-powered Chevy II. 1963: NHRA bites the bullet and lets the nitro-powered Top Fuel class back into the fold; they instantly ascend to the top of the high-performance food chain.

1965: The AHRA christens these new cars “funny” cars—weird funny, not ha-ha funny—and ran a class of them in Phoenix; the NHRA ran Chrisman’s Comet in the fuel dragster class because they didn’t know how to classify it.

1966: Mercury asks the Logghe Brothers to build a one-piece flip-top fiberglass Comet body and tube frame chassis to match—a recipe that, with some tweaks, still holds today.

For 1969, the AHRA called it Heads Up Super Stock.

1973: Don Prudhomme becomes the first driver to win championships in both Funny Car and Top Fuel.

1974: NHRA establishes a points system.

1977: IHRA throws the existing Pro Stock rules out the window and launches the “Mountina Motor” Pro Stock class—stock-bodied cars with 500-cubic-inch V8s in heads-up competition that the spectators ate up.

Ever-faster racing continued unabated: Don Garlits runs a 5.63/250.69mph run at Ontario, a time that went unchallenged until 1981.

1982: NHRA embraces the 500-cubic-inch Pro Stock formula and Don Prudhomme breaks the 250mph barrier in a funny car.

1986: Garlits tops 270mph in his streamlined Swamp Rat XXX. A year later, SRXXX was enshrined in the National Museum of American History.

1992: Former Funny Car pilot and Top Fuel convert Kenny Bernstein records the first 300mph pass in NHRA history.

1993: Jim Epler records the first 300mph Funny Car pass, while Chuck Etchells is the first Funny Car pilot in the 5s, with a 4.98 e.t..

1996: Kenny Bernstein is the first to win World titles in both Funny Car and Top Fuel.

1997: Warren Johnson, Kurt’s dad, records Pro Stock’s first 200mph pass.

1999:Top Fuel driver Tony Schumacher shatters the 330mph barrier in Phoenix.

2002: John Lingenfelter pilots the first front-wheel-drive car into the 6s, a Chevy Cavalier that went 6.993 at 197.67mph

2005: A new grassroots sanctioning body, the NHRDA (National Hot Rod Diesel Association), is created to push the limits of diesel-powered vehicles.

2006: J.R. Todd becomes the first African-American to win a Top Fuel race.

2013: NHRDA records include Jared Jones’ 6.64-second dragster, with Marty Thacker claiming 221+mph in his diesel-powered rail job.