That Wally passed away last week, when I think about it, was not a surprise. He was 94, and although he was still as sharp as ever, the timing lights on his own personal strip had burned for more than nine decades, and that’s a long time for any sort of flame. When you think back on his life, you realize he was a part of matters automotive for more than half the period in which the automobile has existed.

Wally’s life revolved around motorsports, but his codification of drag racing, his turning it into an integral part of the American recreational picture, made him an agent of social change that went beyond matters of bore, stroke and quarter-mile times..

He made the sport “acceptable,