The death of Jim Parker, managing director of Auto-Cycle Union commercial arm ACU Events Limited, has been announced. He passed away on the afternoon of Monday 29 July, aged 74, after a lengthy illness.
A long-serving chairman and member of the influential ACU Road Race Committee between 1991 and 2011, and a member of the FIM Road Racing Commission, Parker entered motorcycle sport initially as a competitor with the Racing 50 club. He than became involved in organisation, working to develop the Clubmans Racing and New Era clubs into the biggest in the country, running some 40 meetings a year.
In the mid-1990s, working with the late Robert Fearnall, Parker played a key role in the development and promotion of British Championship racing. He helped to form the British Supercup series and then became a director of the Motorcycle Circuit Racing Control Board in 2000. More recently, he was credited with forcefully addressing Isle of Man TT spectator safety issues after the fatalities of 2007, thereby contributing much to that iconic event’s subsequent turnaround.
A sometimes controversial figure with an often abrasive manner, Parker was nevertheless renowned for this straight-talking, no-nonsense approach among those who liked him.
Commenting on his demise, ACU chairman Brian Higgins said: “Many people realised that Jim has not been a well man for quite a long time, but this does not detract from the loss to his family and the ACU from his passing away. His work for the ACU, especially in the Isle of Man, certainly paved the way for me to attempt to continue the good work which he created.”
MCRCB chairman Jonathan Palmer paid the following tribute: “Jim Parker was an all-round contributor to motorcycle sport, playing a key role in its development and growth using the wealth of knowledge and experience he had built up through a lifetime of involvement. He will be sadly missed.”