When you listen to Patrick Brenndörfer talk about racing, you quickly realise that his career has always been driven by two things: passion for pure motorsport and a constant search for meaningful stories around sustainability and innovation. On the eve of Round 2 of RCCO World eX Season 9 at Sepang, the founder and owner of Bremotion joined the latest Bizz Talk and gave deep insights into his EuroNASCAR project, his sim racing history, and why a “green racing” idea ultimately led to the creation of his own company.
Patrick’s motorsport journey started trackside at the Nürburgring. As a young fan he visited the DTM and 24 Hours races and still remembers the moment the Mercedes 190 Evo II flew past at 9,800 rpm on the long straight. “This was the first ignition to say, ‘Okay, racing is what I want to do,’” he recalled. From that point on, his goal was simple and ambitious: become a racing driver, ideally a Formula 1 world champion. He went through karting, Formula Ford and the Ford Puma Cup and then, in 1999, joined Heico Sportiv, a professional Volvo tuner, where he would stay for 15 years.
At Heico Sportiv, Brenndörfer was responsible for PR, marketing – and soon racing. In the corner of the workshop stood a Volvo S40 race car from a former factory program that Volvo had stopped. “I asked my boss what we can do and he said, ‘Okay, you can have the car, but do what you want – but not in working time and not with my money,’” Patrick said with a smile. For him it was the dream opportunity to start racing on the Nordschleife.
The early days were as grassroots as it gets. Bremndörfer remembers their first VLN/NLS race with almost no budget: the team turned up with a trailer, two or three mechanics – and street tyres from Continental because they simply couldn’t afford slicks. “We went there with street tyres on the Nordschleife race – absolutely crazy,” he said. Step by step he built a more professional structure, found sponsors, and developed their own cars. The Volvo S40 “Odin” and later a C30 with nearly 400 horsepower, special Nordschleife chassis and sequential gearbox became the core of a serious program.
A key turning point – and the seed for Bremotion – was his decision in 2007 to run on alternative fuels. Brenndörfer switched his Volvo project to E85 bioethanol and branded it “green racing”. “The plan was to tell a new story, to use economic and environment‑friendly fuel,” he explained. The idea worked: the project attracted strong media attention and sponsors such as Evonik, a German chemical company. After bioethanol came biodiesel. “This opened the doors to media and also to sponsors,” Patrick said.
Looking back, he openly links this sustainable story to the foundation of his own company. “Very short version, yes,” he confirmed when asked whether the bioethanol project helped bring Evonik on board as a partner for his first major project after leaving Heico Sportiv. The search for a future‑oriented, sustainable angle in motorsport – combined with his marketing mindset – gave him both the credibility and the partners needed to take the next step. “I’m also a marketing guy, so my question is always what is interesting for people, media, fans and also for the technical side,” he said. Green fuels were his answer, and that answer led straight toward Bremotion.
In 2014, Patrick finally founded Bremotion. The timing was perfect: Evonik asked him to develop and support the Roding Roadster, a carbon monocoque sports car with BMW power from the Bavarian town of Roding. “I said, ‘Yeah, that’s a one‑time in a life chance to start an own project, to start an own company.’ And we did it,” he said. At the same time, he expanded Bremotion’s business model beyond racing. “Just racing is high‑risk business,” he admitted. With a strong background in tuning and performance road cars, he became an official Brabus dealer in Frankfurt in 2015, later adding AC Schnitzer and TechArt. Today, Bremotion’s daily business is building high‑end, individual supercar projects based on customer road cars – a “special garage” rather than a classic car dealer.
Despite that focus on street cars, racing has always remained part of the Bremotion DNA. From 2019 to 2020, the team ran an AMG GT4 program, very much aligned with its road‑car tuning portfolio. “If you are Brabus Mercedes tuner, you are running with a Mercedes on track. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday is the idea – and it’s still working,” Patrick said. The COVID‑19 pandemic forced Bremotion to pause its racing activities at the end of 2020, but the break did not last.
In 2022, a private trip to the United States reignited a long‑held dream: watching a NASCAR race live. The experience of the sound, the simple but spectacular cars and the atmosphere had a big impact. “It was very special – the sound, the action, all this kind of racing, very simple cars – that I decided to check if it’s maybe possible or interesting for us to do this in Europe,” Brenndörfer explained. Within just two weeks he decided to enter the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series for 2023 with Bremotion.
The debut could not have gone better. Bremotion entered the NASCAR Euro Series with two cars and immediately made history. “In our debut season, we won directly two races, which makes history because we were the first German racing team ever which won a NASCAR race worldwide,” Patrick said proudly. Since then, Bremotion has been fully invested in the NASCAR Euro Series, combining its street‑car expertise with a series that offers pure, driver‑focused racing.
For Brenndörfer, the NASCAR Euro Series ticks many boxes. Technically, the series is built around identical cars – same chassis, same engines and no electronic driver aids. “All cars are the same, basically. The chassis, engine and everything is the same – just the body is different,” he said, referring to the Chevrolet Camaro, Toyota Camry and Ford Mustang silhouettes. There is no ABS, no traction control, no BoP. “From my point of view, it’s, from drivers’ possibilities, the best series we have. You can compare it maybe with Porsche Cup, where the cars are also the same, but that’s it.”
The race format is also unique in Europe. The NASCAR Euro Series runs on classic road courses rather than ovals, with 30–40 minute sprint races at tracks like Valencia, Paul Ricard, Brands Hatch, Most and others. “The racing is pure racing,” Patrick emphasised. Two drivers share one car but each has his own race and his own championship, which helps with budgets without turning weekends into traditional endurance events with driver changes.
Financially, the NASCAR Euro Series is still a challenge. The series is European‑wide, which means travel and logistics quickly add up, but at the same time it is not yet big enough to be an obvious marketing platform for very large international corporations. “We are a European championship, so the costs are high – travelling costs and logistic costs,” Brenndörfer explained. “To find a partner who is European‑wide involved is not so easy, because for the very big companies the European championship is maybe a little bit too small, and for German companies it’s too big. So this is a big challenge.” Nevertheless, he is convinced that the series will continue to grow, highlighting live TV coverage with Sportdigital, a German‑language TV partner, and an English‑language YouTube feed as important steps forward.
To increase awareness and reach, Bremotion invests heavily in events and fan activation, especially in Germany. The team organises local and national events around cities like Frankfurt and Magdeburg, leveraging their drivers’ regional connections. Patrick stressed that the product at the track is already strong. Events such as Brands Hatch – part of a large American SpeedFest with 50,000–60,000 spectators, historic V8 races, classic NASCARs, paddock activities and live music – show the potential. “For racing guys, it’s like a dream,” he said. At Most, the NASCAR Euro Series races together with the European Truck Championship, attracting around 40,000 fans.“ The product is good and the events are very nice, but we have to work on our reach so that racing fans notice that NASCAR is available in Europe,” he concluded.
A central topic of the Bizz Talk was Bremotion’s decision to run a sim racer – Garrett Lowe – in the NASCAR Euro Series. The idea is based on Patrick’s own experience with the power of simulation. In 2019, Bremotion put a young kart driver without a road licence straight into GT4 and prepared him using their simulator and iRacing. “He was from the very first beginning able to run in the front of GT4,” Patrick said, calling it his first proof of how strong sim‑based preparation can be today.
Two years ago, Florian Hasper from BS+COMPETITION approached Bremotion with a bold proposal: run Garrett Lowe, a top eNASCAR sim racer, in the NASCAR Euro Series. “I was from the first minute happy to be part of this idea,” Brenndörfer said. The proof of concept came quickly. Lowe stepped directly into the top‑tier PRO division and was immediately competitive. “He was able from the first race to run in the front, and we finished with two podiums in the championship,” Patrick reported. “I’m pretty sure that he is one of the potential race winners for this year,” he added.
Interestingly, Patrick’s connection to sim racing goes back much further than today’s iRacing and eNASCAR era. In the late 1990s he was involved in one of the most iconic racing sims ever: Grand Prix Legends. “It was my sponsor in Formula Ford in 1998,” he explained. Grand Prix Legends was the first serious simulation of the Nürburgring Nordschleife and quickly earned a reputation for being brutally difficult and extremely realistic. “It’s nothing for easy racing in the evening,” Patrick joked. “It’s really hard simulation.”
Back then he had the chance to build a physical simulator based on a cut‑down Formula Ford chassis and present it on the Nürburgring booth at the Essen Motor Show. For two weeks, fans – including drivers who had raced at the Nordschleife in the 1960s – queued to try it and share stories about reference trees and braking points. “It was a crazy time,” Brenndörfer recalled. “After the show in the evening, we drove during the whole night Nordschleife.” He also contributed feedback to the Grand Prix Legends developers before release. “My partner asked me to give some ideas what they have to change, and it was a great experience,” he said.
Today, he still uses simulation – but in a different way. “Yes, I have a simulator and sometimes I do, but more for relaxing,” he admitted when asked if he still races virtually. When he needs to clear his head or look for new ideas, he does a few laps around the Nordschleife at home. “When I need some good ideas and I want to cool down a little bit, I go there and drive some laps on Nordschleife,” he said. Competing at the top level in sim racing is no longer realistic for him, simply because of time. “The scene is so professional in the meantime and you have to practice every day – and I have no time for this, unfortunately,” he explained. But the simulator remains an integral part of the Bremotion ecosystem: “All our drivers are practising in the simulator.”