Mom arrived at Phenix City Dragstrip in Alabama one hot day in May of 1970. As she opened the trunk to lay out the chicken she prepared, Dad informed her that he was racing her Chevelle that day so she would have to set it up somewhere else.
So, as Dad won rounds that day in her Chevelle and his race car, he got to the finals with both cars. The track operators told Dad they would not pay for a win and runner up if both cars did not go down the dragstrip. Dad’s answer?? Put Mom in her car to drive and he would drive his!
Mom won the race, not sure if Dad let her as either way he would be taking home the money. Mom did great seeing as she was 8 months pregnant with me at the time…
Dan Parker in the right (far) lane with the wheelie bar, Frog Stafford in the left (near) lane.
Early on I realized I sucked at stick-and-ball sports but I was drawn to anything mechanical like a rare earth magnet sticking to a ferrous metal. I was the bored kid in the outfield. I was not chasing butterflies, but my mind was thinking of things to work on. After a line drive to my privates as I was attending third base when I was about 7, I knew this sport was not for me.
One year later, as Dad entered an all-motorcycle race at Phenix City presented by “The Bold Ones” motorcycle club, he entered me in the mini bike class. I came in second to friend Frog Stafford and I would later come in second to Frog two more times as we got older. In the picture, I am on the red Honda XR75 that Dad made me a set of wheelie bars and had duct tape around the front wheel like I had seen the fast motorcycle racers do, and Frog is in the other lane, left I think.
Dan Parker (foreground, in overalls) with his brother Chris and mentor Lance Brown (in red, on motorcycle).
My turning point in school was as I entered Shaw High School in the fall of 1983. I got my schedule and found out I had Lance Brown as my metals teacher. In this picture, I am the little one in the overalls with my brother Chris, and Lance is in the background on his drag bike he built himself. If I went for a doctor’s opinion at that time, I am almost sure I would be told I had ADD. As I barely skimped by in my other classes, Lance was letting me blossom in metals.
The first medal Dan Parker ever won. He was 14 years old and road racing bicycles at the Georgia State Championships.
14 was a busy age for me. The summer of 1984, I was working at “The Bike Shop” owned by Family friend Mike Tidd. I won my first medal of any kind (shown here) when I won the 14 age group as a bicycle road racer for the Georgia State Championships.
As Lance let me work on his prized project, like putting an extra spark plug in his heads for his personal Harley Davidson, I fell in love with metal work.
Halfway through my junior year, I found out Mom was remarrying and we would be moving to the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan.
As I entered Seaholm High School on my first day after being at the Vocational High School about 10 miles away for half a day that morning, I was greeted by the school clown. After he decided to make the new Southern boy the brunt of his jokes, I promptly gave him a good Southern ass whooping that he most likely still remembers today.
So, as my social circle was my friends at SEOVEC that came from the blue collar working families of Detroit’s auto industry, and as I stood out like a sore thumb at Seaholm, I was introduced to the HUGE street racing scene in downtown Detroit.
I saw my first Lenco on the streets of Detroit. Cars were in my blood for life at this point. My buddies convinced me to enter my brother’s 1968 Dodge Dart with a slant 6 for power in the High School Nationals. At the end of the day, I came in second with its 19 second quarter mile passes and I waved to my buddies on the fence as I made a pass. No worries, I still had PLENTY of time to judge the stripe because the old Dart was so slow!
So after BARELY graduating high school the summer of 1988, I quit working in bicycle shops as I had done since I was 14 and got a real job in one of Detroit’s finest machine shops owned by Veterans of World War II Navy machinists. I learned so much from men that had to make or machine anything needed from thin air in the belly of a war ship as bombs exploded around them.
On February 26, 1989, I called Dad and told him I would be home down South tomorrow as I quit my job as I had finally threw in the towel of cold climates and snow.
As I drove my lowered 1988 Nissan extended cab truck that I bought new without any help, I reflected on my past. From racing at 8 years old on the dragstrip, winning bicycle racing championships, and racing the Dart, I knew that I would have big things to accomplish in life and I would have to find a way to blend the things of life I loved: racing, welding, and machining.
I hope you took the time to learn about my childhood and soon we will focus on what I did with it all.
Sincerely,
Dan Parker
The Blind Machinist
