5X Racing Sponsors Preston Pardus
Supporting, or "sponsoring" a specific racer has never been a road we traveled. Our recent shift in the way we support Miata racers came to us in a bit of a "moment of clarity". That moment of clarity was a race video posted by Florida Spec Miata Racer Preston Pardus from an SCCA event at Daytona. This video was first and foremost very well made with a professional look and feel to it, but the real hook to it starts at minute 15 mark when the last lap battle ensues! I've watched this video at least a dozen times despite racing at this track for the last 10-years myself, and in all of our times out on this track, never experienced anything remotely as exciting as what Preston does in this race. More specifically in the closing laps of the race. I don't want to spoil it for you because it is so good, so please watch for yourself and be immersed in all that is Spec Miata and all that Spec Miata was always intended to be! (the video is embedded at the bottom of this article)
To futher expand on the "moment of clarity", after watching Preston's video I realized that he is "doing it right" in terms of marketing himself and his racing effort. We've watched Preston's rise to the top of the ranks for the last few years, starting at the local regional level and now on a national scale within the SCCA and NASA. But when I watched that Daytona video, I knew we wanted to be a part of Preston's program as he is doing all of the things I wanted do when "5X Racing" was just "John Adamczyk" before we got our start as a business way back in 2006! Marketing yourself and your racing effort is a lot more difficult than one might think. I know because I tried to do the same thing when I first started racing in 2006, and as a result started 5X Racing as a means to support my racing addiction as I didn't have what it took to present myself well enough to enourage companies to take notice. With "being there" before, we feel that Preston is working very hard to acheive his goals in Spec Miata and we wanted to help him acheive those goals. We like what Preston has to offer us in helping to promote our brand, and in return, we want to help promote HIS brand as a racing driver.
What makes Preston's program so attractive to us is a combination of a few things:
- Preston races A LOT! We wish we could race as much as Preston does (see previous article), but since we cannot, we feel that flying our 5X Racing banner on his car is the next best thing to us having our own car on track.
- His race videos. Not only does he challenge for the win when he races - which gives the viewer a look into what it takes to compete at the front of the pack in SM - he drives the wheels off of the car! His videos are absolutely amazing and rival any of the best in-car footage we've ever seen this side of British Touring Car Championship races!
- His car is very noticable and often lands itself in magazines and articles. (ie: see picture below)
- He is active on social media and helps to support his sponsors by tagging and acknowledging them in his posts. This is important to an internet company such as ourselves who prides itself on cyber traffic via its social media outlet followers.
- He is an ambassador of the class whether he knows it or not. By creating excellent race videos that have viral potential, he is bringing positive attention to the class by means of captivating content people can watch and share.
- He uses 5X Racing sourced parts! Working with Mike Rossini for car and engine builds - who is also a partner of ours - we know that a good number of our parts are on Preston's car, which is something we can be proud of knowing he actually supports us too!
Preston Pardus grew up around his father Dan Pardus racing NASCAR in the Winston Cup and ARCA series, so his passion for racing started at a very young age. Starting out in quarter midgets at the age of 8, Preston earned countless podium finishes at Little New Smyrna Speedway. Growing a little too old for quarter midgets, Preston raced motorcross on the side and then acquired his SCCA Novice Permit at only 15 years old in 2012. Preston quickly caught onto racing in Miata's. Within a short year and a half, Preston already raced in three SCCA Major events; Sebring, Road Atlanta, and Virginia International Raceway. He also has earned multiple podiums in his short time as a Miata race driver. In 2015 he qualified 5th in the SCCA National Runoffs at Daytona International Speedway in one of the most prestigous grassroots races of the year. Having strong track presence and stellar results from the runoffs charge and into the following seasons, Preston is gearing up for the National Championship run with the upcoming NASA Eastern Championships at Sebring International Raceway, a hometrack for Preston. We're happy to get on-board with his effort going into this critial stretch into the fall championship run, and hope to help him get onto that podium or at the very least, have a successful season.
We are very excited to announce this partnership with Preston and hope that you will follow his racing exploits, and along with it, follow his social media outlets to be informed on his latest events and results.
Thanks for reading!
John
