3F Racing seeking to become first German NASCAR team

With the début of the Next Gen car, the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series has seemingly presented itself as a new opportunity to reach outside the United States, such as Formula One veterans Daniil Kvyat and Kimi Räikkönen entering the sport. Team Hezeberg, who fielded a car for Kvyat, added some European flavour to the grid as the first Dutch operation in NASCAR’s highest level when they began racing this year.

Now, 3F Racing hopes to become the first German-led Cup team. If things go to plan, they will field the #30 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, with Speedway Digest‘s Ethan Miller reporting they intend to run the final five races of the 2022 season beginning with the Charlotte Roval on 9 October followed by a part-time 2023 slate and going full-time in 2024.

3F stands for “3Friends” in reference to the team being run a triumvirate of, well, friends. The lead owner Dennis Hirtz comes from a European GT racing background, working as the marketing director for Phoenix Racing (no relation to the former NASCAR team) from 2017 to 2020. The 39-year-old is also a minor league ice hockey goaltender, rostering with ESV Bergisch Gladbach (and its junior team) and TuS Wiehl from 2009 to 2013 and FASS Berlin II in 2019/20; in March 2019, Hirtz and his Phoenix Racing colleagues played an exhibition against Eisbären Berlin, the current back-to-back Deutsche Eishockey Liga champions.

“For us it is more than entering a new racing series, it’s making a childhood dream reality,” reads a statement from Hirtz on the team’s website. “And we will succeed with a very strong team, as friends, and with high-class drivers.”

A driver was not announced, though Hirtz’s email to Frontstretch said the team will have a two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner for the Roval followed by an experienced NASCAR regular. The former, when coupled with Hirtz pointing out 3F will have a Richard Childress Racing alliance, might suggest 2015 and 2017 Le Mans overall winner Earl Bamber, who ran a NASCAR Xfinity Series race for RCR in 2020. 3F and Xfinity driver Justin Allgaier also follow each other on Instagram.

“I did see my name for that one,” Allgaier told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass following Saturday’s Xfinity race at Michigan. “I think the fact that it said a veteran driver and people kind of said, ‘Okay, well, who’s available?’ But I follow them on Instagram because I feel like, […] I think for me, seeing new owners that are interested in the sport is a pretty big deal. I’ve seen those guys actually run around the garage and said hi to them. I think they got a lot of work to do to get their programme off the ground, but they’re excited about it.

“I’m hopeful that we see another Cup car on the grid. That would be cool. We’ll see, I don’t know.”

United States Marine and late model racer Christopher Tate is also a member of the organisation as a development driver with plans of competing in the Camping World Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series.