Dan Pardus has dedicated almost a year to preparing a NASCAR Xfinity Series stock car for his son Preston to race at Road America this weekend. This effort took thousands of dollars and countless man hours to complete in a race shop located deep in the woods near New Smyrna Beach.

SAMSULA — The Pardus Racing shop is so deep in the woods team owner Dan Pardus will tell an expected visitor: “Don’t bother using your GPS. It won’t find us.”

Pardus gives general directions on the phone, and once you reach a certain radius of his property he will emerge from the dense brush on his golf cart and guide a guest to his complex.

Inside the compound you find an oasis of racing technology and a stock car that looks like it just came off the assembly line of an elite NASCAR race team.

In many ways this stock car is of that caliber.

Pardus, 56, purchased a little-used, Xfinity-legal, road-racing chassis from Chip Ganassi Racing. The plain white car with the No. 43 screaming off the side panel in Day-Glo orange-red hue will be powered by an Earnhardt Childress Racing engine.

Almost a year after deciding to send his 22-year-old son Preston into NASCAR battle, that dream will become reality this weekend at Road America.

“We’ve done a lot of work on the car,” Preston said. “We’ve been running back and forth from here to Charlotte to get the car prepped. We have done a lot of little things on this car.”

This is not a shade-tree mechanic effort by two guys out in the wilderness. The car owner has spent almost a year in meticulous planning and preparation, paid out thousands of dollars and had Road America circled on the map since this plot was created.

The Pardus Racing No. 43 has even been to NASCAR’s Research and Development Center in Concord, North Carolina, two times for measurement and certification.

“In the last 30 years, I have learned how not to do things,” Pardus said. “In order to be competitive in this sport, you have to have a good driver, and good equipment — the best that’s out there to be competitive in this racing league.

“I understand that now. Getting the best of everything available was important to us to make this program successful.”

Pardus began mentoring his son’s racing career 14 years ago. Preston’s amateur career peaked when he captured the Spec Mazda Miata SCCA national championship in 2017 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“We felt Preston plateaued in that series,” Pardus said. “We got to the point where we needed to move him up.

“With my stock-car background we felt the NASCAR road racing was a better option for us, so he would get big car experience and probably a lot more exposure.”

Dan Pardus is a native to this area and caught the racing bug as a young man. He went from racing a cranked-up Ford Pinto at New Smyrna Speedway to getting his one and only NASCAR Cup Series start in the 1998 Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

He made 38 ARCA starts, scoring four top-five finishes and 18 Xfinity Series starts, during his nearly decade-long, stock-car career.

During those race-driver years, Pardus struck up many friendships in the racing community. He tapped those resources as he put the program together.

His checklist included sending the driver to something of a pit-stop boot camp at Ganassi Racing, obtaining a custom-made seat from Hendrick Motorsports and retaining crew-chief-for-hire Tony Furr, who guided John Andretti to victory in the 1997 summer Cup Series race at Daytona.

Furr will be calling the shots from the pit box at Road America, a 4.048-mile course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Pardus has also made sure to stay in constant contact with NASCAR Xfinity Series managing director Wayne Auton.

“Dan is a class act,” Auton said in a recent telephone interview. “I know he’s going to bring a good car to the track. I’m tickled to death he’s getting back into the NASCAR racing fold.

“With Tony on the pit box, that’s another plus. If the kid will listen to Tony — and Dan will leave them both alone," he added with a laugh, "Tony is going to get that kid a really good run.”

Auton said a race team does not have to be located near Charlotte, the hub of stock-car race teams, to find success. He points to Furniture Row Racing, which was located in Denver, Colorado, and won the Cup Series championship in 2017.

“It’s awesome to see a new team coming in,” Auton said. “This is definitely the series where names are being made and Preston could make a name for himself this week.”

If all goes according to plan, Preston Pardus will get his first Xfinity start Saturday and return to the fray on Sept. 28 to compete on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval course.

“I learned you need to do way more to be successful when you’re racing against teams like Richard Childress Racing and Roush Fenway Racing,” Dan Pardus said.

“You have to be prepared. I feel like we got the driver. I really feel Preston can get it done on the track. We just have to get him the proper equipment and we did that with months of preparation.”