{"id":102426,"date":"2025-10-18T13:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/daniel-phantom-parkers-drag-racing-hobby-leads-to-championship-greatness\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T13:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T13:44:18","slug":"daniel-phantom-parkers-drag-racing-hobby-leads-to-championship-greatness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/daniel-phantom-parkers-drag-racing-hobby-leads-to-championship-greatness\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel \u2018Phantom\u2019 Parker\u2019s Drag Racing Hobby Leads to Championship Greatness"},"content":{"rendered":"

For fans of\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0and No Prep Kings (now Speed Promotions Racing), Daniel Parker \u2013 better known as \u201cPhantom\u201d \u2013 is almost as recognizable as the man he works with: Shawn \u201cMurder Nova\u201d Ellington. For 15 years, the two have been nearly inseparable at the track or on the street.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #196, the State of Drag Issue, in Sept.\/Oct. of 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

Parker started out helping Ellington in 2010 with simple responsibilities like checking the tires in the same 1955 Chevy that Ellington\u2019s son, Aiden, now races in Lil\u2019 Gangstas. Drag racing was already in Parker\u2019s blood prior to that, however; his dad raced before he was even born, and as he got older, Parker started messing around with a 2007 Chevy truck sprayed with nitrous.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been into drag racing,\u201d says Parker. \u201cWhen I met all these guys with\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>, they thought the truck was cool, and they invited me out to some street races. It was the only vehicle I had for about five years, so if I broke it Saturday while we were out street racing, I had to fix it Sunday so I could get to work on Monday.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Parker admits he was just a hobbyist with no mechanical background prior to joining Murder Nova\u2019s team, typically working with LS-based platforms in his driveway. After helping Ellington on his own for five years, he was officially hired in 2015 to handle the team\u2019s social media. From that point on, his status in the drag racing world has continued to climb.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cOnce I got to be around all of this on a daily basis, my mechanical knowledge grew exponentially,\u201d Parker says. \u201cI\u2019m a sponge. Over the last 10 years I\u2019ve just soaked up everything I could possibly learn about how engines and suspensions work. I\u2019ve taught myself how to tig weld. I\u2019ve learned different strategies for getting down the track or street. I haven\u2019t gotten into how transmissions work yet because that stuff is voodoo, but it\u2019s on my list.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past 3-4 years, Parker\u2019s role expanded to that of crew chief, working together with tuner Brandon Stroud. With Ellington needing to focus on driving and interacting with fans, Parker took it upon himself to continue gaining knowledge through observation. With a new focus and mindset, the team of self-proclaimed \u201cmorons\u201d quickly became legitimate contenders in NPK.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s I don\u2019t like losing at all. I never have,\u201d says Parker. \u201cIt\u2019s probably not one of my best qualities, but I\u2019m a terrible loser. When you go out and lose first round every single weekend, you eventually decide you don\u2019t want to do that and figure out how not to do it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, everything\u2019s changed,\u201d Parker continues. \u201cI\u2019ve got lists on lists of everything we check on these cars. It\u2019s a lot of work, but I\u2019d rather do the work and see the good stuff at the end of it than slack off and get nothing for it. It costs the same money no matter what we do, so if we\u2019re gonna spend this money, we might as well get something from it. We came up with a plan, and it all came together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It came together in a big way in 2024, when Murder Nova won both the NPK regular season championship and the No Prep Elite \u201cplayoff\u201d championship, capping it all off with a win in the season finale at the Texas Motorplex.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since then, the team has added Pro Mod to their r\u00e9sum\u00e9, competing in both the Drag Illustrated Winter Series and the Mid-West Drag Racing Series in \u201cBlue,\u201d a twin-turbocharged \u201969 Camaro owned by Keith Haney. In their MWDRS debut, they won the 2025 season opener at Xtreme Raceway Park in Ferris, Texas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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And while the weight of an NPK championship and a new venture into a professional class brings a lot of pressure to the position, Parker says he wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. He relishes the opportunity to consistently be at the top of his game \u2013 whether it\u2019s checking tires, pulling data after each pass, or helping Ellington winning championships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever I do \u2013 whatever anyone does \u2013 I feel like you should want to be the best at it,\u201d Parker says. \u201cThat\u2019s where my mindset is. And I know I\u2019m not the best, but that\u2019s my goal. I want to be considered one of the best.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The post Daniel \u2018Phantom\u2019 Parker\u2019s Drag Racing Hobby Leads to Championship Greatness<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For fans of\u00a0Street Outlaws\u00a0and No Prep Kings (now Speed Promotions Racing), Daniel Parker \u2013 better known as \u201cPhantom\u201d \u2013 is almost as recognizable as the man he works with: Shawn \u201cMurder Nova\u201d Ellington. For 15 years, the two have been nearly inseparable at the track or on the street.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}