David Parsons

From 1998 onwards Parsons was a hired gun, driving for Gibson Motorsport and Owen Parkinson Racing, including co-drives with the other racing driver named David "Truckie" Parsons. His final Bathurst appearance was alongside Paul Romano in 2000. Since then Parsons has made occasional one-off appearances in various sedan based categories.

Parsons then went on to join Glenn Seton Racing in 1991 where he became a regular co-driver for the team for the next seven years, continuing to race with the team into the V8 Supercar era. The highlight of his time with GSR was winning the 1993 Sandown 500 co-driving a Ford EB Falcon with Geoff Brabham and qualifying in the top ten at the 1991 Tooheys 1000 in a Sierra.

Parsons stayed with the team into 1988 as they transitioned from V8 Holden Commodore's to 4 cyl BMW M3s, although by now in Australia the giant killers of 1987 had become little more than class runners in the face of the all-powerful Sierras. After then sitting out 1989 during which time the Brock team also switched to running the RS500 Sierra's, Parsons returned to Brock's team in 1990, teaming with Andrew Miedecke and Charlie O'Brien to finish 11th at the 1990 Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst, 12 laps down on the winning Holden Racing Team SS Group A Commodore of Allan Grice and Win Percy.

Heading into the 1987 James Hardie 1000 (which was also a round of the WTCC) the Holden Dealer Team was expected to do little more the make up the numbers against the strength of the factory supported European Ford and BMW teams. When the #05 car Parsons shared with Brock experienced a major engine failure in the early running, their effort looked set to be little more than a footnote (Brock had pitted a number of laps early and put Parsons into the car leading to speculation that Brock knew the engine was dying and wanted himself in the pits rather than stranded out on the track, though Parsons did manage to get the heavily smoking #05 back to the pits). First Brock, then Parsons stepped aboard the team's second car, #10 which had been driven to that point of the race by the 1983 Australian Endurance Champion Peter McLeod. Inspired driving on variable surface as rain plagued the second half of the race, good strategy and a lucky break with safety car procedure saw the team claw their way past the BMW M3s as they failed, and the Nissan Skyline turbos and into third position behind the flawless 1-2 finish of the Eggenberger Motorsport Ford Sierra RS500s. During his stint at the wheel, Parsons recorded a time of 2:25.37 on lap 129 which was credited as #10's fastest race lap in the 1987 1000 (Brock's fastest recorded time was a 2:25.55 on lap 90 while McLeod had posted a 2:26.58 on lap 58).

After scrutineering at Bathurst in 1987, there had been rumours about the legality of the Eggenberger built Sierra's, specifically to do with oversized wheel arches. On the Thursday before qualifying an official protest was lodged against the Sierra's, which was held over due to the lack of a road going RS500 in Australia to compare them with. Eventually, after nearly four months and an eventual disqualification and later appeal by Eggenberger, the two Sierras were disqualified for having oversize wheel arches allowing them to fit larger wheels, giving McLeod, Brock and Parsons the race win.

Parsons was retained as a driver for the HDT into 1985, although results were harder to come by as the Commodore initially struggled with engine unreliability in Australia's move to the FIA's Group A rules. The highlight of the year for the Tasmanian dairy farmer was out qualifying team leader Brock at the 1985 James Hardie 1000 (the only time that Brock as the HDT owner was out-qualified by a teammate). Parsons left HDT in 1986 to join Perkins in his new team Perkins Engineering, but was let go in early 1987 with Perkins opting for someone with "more experience" after Parsons had crashed the Commodore in the Wellington 500 (Perkins would select 1967 World Champion Denny Hulme as Parsons replacement with the pair going on to win the Pukekohe 500 a week after Wellington). Parsons rejoined the HDT, now without any official support from Holden following the company's split with Brock in February 1987, and joined Brock and Neville Crichton at the Spa 24 Hours round of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). The trio failed to finish the race.

This, and his performances in his self-funded Commodore in the 1983 ATCC, brought him to the attention of Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team, and with the help of Janson he was drafted into the HDT for the 1984 Australian Endurance Championship. Parsons co-drove with John Harvey to a DNF in the Oran Park 250 in Brock's ATCC car, before the pair went on to finish 3rd in the 1984 Castrol 500 at Sandown in the second of the team's new VK Commodore's. From there Harvey/Parsons finished 2nd in the 1984 James Hardie 1000 behind teammates Brock and Larry Perkins, with Parsons following Brock across the finish line in a 1-2 form finish. Late in the James Hardie 1000, Parsons was "let off the leash" by team owner Brock who told him to go for second place which was held at the time by 1980 Formula One World Champion Alan Jones who was driving Warren Cullen's similar VK Commodore. Parsons responded to the challenge and reduced the gap to the former World Champion from over a minute to under two seconds before Jones was forced to pit with 4 laps remaining for fuel and attention to the cars non-existent rear brakes (unfortunately for Jones, the stop not only saw Parsons go past but also Gregg Hansford in Allan Moffat's Mazda RX-7, dropping the Commodore to 4th place and off the podium).

After finishing 7th in the 1983 ATCC in his own privately entered Holden VH Commodore SS, Parsons drove his 1983 Bathurst Commodore for Peter Janson in the opening two rounds of the 1984 championship at Sandown and Symmons Plains, but Janson did not have the funds to run the full series and these were Parson's only drives in the championship which saw him fall to 17th in the standings.

The son of Tasmanian touring car racer Graham Parsons, David Parsons, a dairy farmer, began emerging onto the national scene racing a Holden VC Commodore in the 1982 Australian Touring Car Championship, making his debut at his home track, Symmons Plains in Tasmania. Embraced as an endurance co-driver by gentleman privateer racer Peter Janson, he showed pace on his way to fourth outright at the 1982 James Hardie 1000, as well as qualifying Janson's Commodore 3rd for the 1983 race.

David John "Skippy" Parsons (born 17 May 1959 in Devonport, Tasmania), is a retired Australian racing driver, who while never a full-time racing driver, drove for the biggest racing teams in Australia including the Holden Dealer Team, Perkins Engineering, Glenn Seton Racing and Gibson Motorsport.