A Quick 50; NHRA celebrates five decades of innovation.

In a small, nondescript Los Angeles restaurant that's long since faded into obscurity, nestled into a booth at the Tam-O-Shanter on Los Feliz Boulevard in Los Angeles on March 13, 1951, were Ak Miller, Marvin Lee, Wally Parks and ``an attorney.'' They weren't there for dinner.

``We put together all the parts of what would become the National Hot Rod Association,'' Parks said. ``It wasn't until the next day, we actually signed the papers of incorporation, there were still a couple things to take care of, but that was when it happened.''

Parks was president (as well as Hot Rod magazine editor), Miller was vice president and Lee was secretary. That was almost exactly 50 years ago. In the ensuing half-century the NHRA would grow to become the largest motorsports sanctioning body in the world, with more than 85,000 members, 35,000 licensed competitors and 5000 races every year.

``Nobody [then] had any illusion it would become as big as it has,'' Parks said.

But the group's goals then remain very close to what they are now: adopt and maintain the strictest safety standards in motorsports, establish rules governing the sport and educate the public about drag racing. It sounds simple, but nobody had ever done anything like it before.

At the time it was very much necessary. Drag racing before the NHRA wasn't too far from what you see on those B movies late at night on Speedvision with titles like Drag Strip Demons. With the exception of dry lakes racers at Southern California Timing Association events, the kids who raced on America's back roads and empty city streets usually had more enthusiasm than good judgment, drove questionably constructed cars, and there was generally not a roll bar in sight. It wasn't that racing itself had to be dangerous, just that no one had come along to make it safe or organized. The NHRA took what had existed illegally across the country and molded it into something safe and presentable without taking out any of the elements making it fun. The task was equal parts public relations and organization.

``We were fortunate, we picked people who were actively interested in the sport, and whose wives were actively interested in it,'' said Parks, adding, jokingly, ``In many cases the wife was the better part of the bargain.''