Education
He finished 2nd in the Renault Cup National Championship in 1984, earning a spot with the factory Renault team to race in Europe.
He finished 2nd in the Renault Cup National Championship in 1984, earning a spot with the factory Renault team to race in Europe.
Instead of attending Juilliard School of Music, he went to the engineering school at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his degree in 1982. He began his amateur racing career while in high school while working as a systems programmer in Silicon Valley part-time to pay for his new hobby, racing automobiles. Winning at SCCA events, he worked as an instructor at the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving after college.
Honda hired him to drive during the 1984 season.
In 1987 he was also the rookie of the year in the pro-Formula Atlantic division. He finished second in both 1989 and 1990 in the IMSA International Sedan Championship.
CART
A road course specialist, he drove in mainly road course races in the 1994 and 1995 CART/IndyCar seasons for Comptech Racing. Significantly, in his oval debut at the Michigan 500 in 1995, he qualified on the pole with a new track record, giving Honda its first ever champ car pole position.
He dominated the race until sidelined with a mechanical problem.
In 1995, he also set the closed course world speed record in excess of 238 mph. He then moved up and ran the full season in 1996. Foreign 1997, he moved to Team Green Racing.
Although he led several IndyCar races, his best CART finish was a second place that came in 1996 at the Long Beach Grand Prix.
After he retired from professional racing, Parker became the color analyst commentator for American Broadcasting Company"s/Entertainment and Sports Programming Network"s coverage of IndyCar/CART racing. When Entertainment and Sports Programming Network stopped covering IndyCar/CART he was moved to cover the pit action and work as the technical pit analyst for the NHRA coverage.
After three years of covering the NHRA Drag Racing Championship, he left broadcasting to oversee and operate Parker Johnstone"s Wilsonville Honda in Wilsonville, Oregon. Several of his historically significant race cars are on display there.
He is scuba certified.
He has appeared in over 50 television commercials as well as performed as a stuntman in the movie Speed. Currently he competes in triathlons and cycling races. He also serves on the board of directors for the Children"s Cancer Association.
SCCA National Championship Runoffs
American Open Wheel
(key)
= CART =.
He is a member of both the Screen Actors Guild (Screen Actors Guild) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (American Federation TV and Radio Artists). He lives in Wilsonville where he is a member of the city"s board on parks.