Parks was born in 1913 and developed a passion for automobiles as both a writer and a hands-on hobbyist. In January 1948 he became the co-founder and first editor of Hot Rod magazine, a publication that would become the central voice of American car culture in the postwar era. He also played an instrumental role in the founding of Motor Trend magazine in September 1949, cementing his position as a key figure in automotive journalism during the period when hot rod culture was expanding rapidly across the United States.
From his platform at Hot Rod magazine, Parks began championing the cause of organised, safety-conscious drag racing. He recognised that the growing enthusiasm for high-speed acceleration runs was producing dangerous, uncontrolled street racing, and that providing legitimate venues and standards was the only sustainable solution. In 1954 he organised the first of several "Safety Safaris" — tours of the United States that visited tracks across the country, teaching race organisers the principles of safe drag race management. This initiative represented the first systematic effort to move racers from public roads onto controlled circuits.
In 1951, Parks founded the National Hot Rod Association, which grew over subsequent decades into the largest motorsports sanctioning body in the world. As president of the NHRA he oversaw the development of standardised rules, vehicle classification systems, and safety protocols that gave drag racing the institutional legitimacy it needed to attract sponsors, venues, and mainstream audiences. His wife, Barbara, worked for the NHRA as Chief Secretary during its formative years, contributing to the organisation's administrative foundations before her death in 2006.
Parks worked to extend drag racing's reach beyond the United States. In 1964 and 1965 he organised tours to England, conducted in collaboration with Sydney Allard, and in 1966 he organised a similar tour to Australia. These efforts introduced organised drag racing to new audiences and laid groundwork for the sport's international development.
The trophy awarded to winners of NHRA national events was named the Wally in Parks's honour. The award is a bronze statue depicting a Top Gas racer standing beside a tyre on a wooden platform. During the NHRA's 60th anniversary season in 2011, pewter Wally trophies were awarded to all event winners, and special milestone celebrations have used trophies in varying colours. The naming of the trophy after the organisation's founder reflects the degree to which Parks became synonymous with the NHRA itself.
In his later years, Parks served as chairman of the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, California, an institution dedicated to preserving the history of the sport he had built. He died on September 28, 2007, at the age of 94, from complications arising from pneumonia.
Parks was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1993. His 1966 book Drag Racing: Yesterday and Today provided a contemporaneous account of the sport's development from its street origins to its organised professional form.