There are certain teams that, when you see its name on an entry, you know that anyone who wants to win that championship will have to topple that squad. And few teams are more resolute in this status than Team Parker Racing, run by Stuart Parker.
The squad, that Parker runs with brother Andy, celebrated its 25th anniversary in early 2022. Team Parker claimed its first titles, in Caterhams, back in 2001, and since then it’s barely stopped collecting championships, particularly in Porsche and Caterham competition. This continues to this day: the squad’s taken the last two Carrera Cup GB overall drivers’ titles and the last two overall Sprint Challenge GB drivers’ crowns (and plenty of other accolades within the two contests and elsewhere in that time).
Team Parker also in 2017 won the overall championship in British GT – with a Bentley marque that’s close to Parker’s heart – and had a race-winning spell in the British Touring Car Championship. It has also raced in pan-European racing in GT World Challenge and its predecessors, where it also has taken title success and even won the Spa and Nurburgring 24-Hour races in class.
We also discovered when asking the readers’ queries to Parker, just after he’d returned from a fine team showing in the recent Dubai 24 Hours with a Bentley GT3, that the team getting up and running at all was something he rather fell into, as was the team getting involved in Porsche racing where, as intimated, it is now royalty.
And when MN posted its social media requests for readers’ questions for Parker, it was noticeable that we got a multitude of replies noting that Parker is a legend, and a top bloke. We, having asked the said questions, can vouch.
As Parker notes, cars were always a given for him. His father Geoff joined a garage business that stretched back to Geoff’s own grandfather Albert, and the family at one point owned a vast collection of vintage cars. Geoff, who had a particular affinity for Bentley, was a regular fixture in paddocks helping the team until his death in 2022.
Yet it turns out that, even over and above this, Parker’s family back story is remarkable…
Question: Is it true that you and Andy got to race your go-karts on Donington’s Melbourne Loop thanks to you father’s friendship with Tom Wheatcroft?
Alexander Cameron Via email
Stuart Parker: “That is correct. That’s how it all started for us. My dad bought us a kart and we used to take it down to the old Melbourne Loop and have a blast around there in the summer holidays.”
MN: So what was that like, getting to do that?
SP: “It was great. We spent so much of our childhood at Donington Park, it’s ridiculous. We definitely classed that as our home race just because of the affinity we have with the place through Tom, through my grandfather, through my father, that will always be home to us.”
MN: Was it literally going around the Melbourne Loop or did you put cones in for chicanes and things?
SP: “Yeah, we made a little course up and we used to go and have a bit of fun. But that’s literally what got it all started, from that I pestered my dad to let me race. He made me wait until I was 16, I had to do my GCSEs and pass them and then once I passed those then he let me race for real.”
MN: So do you think it was inevitable you and Andy were always going to get into cars and racing given what your dad did?
“Cars was a given. We grew up around cars, we never knew anything different. To be fair, we grew up around the Vintage Sports-Car Club,
