Nico Roehreke

Nico Roehreke (* 1953 as Claus-Heinrich Röhreke in India ) is a German entrepreneur and a former racing driver who started exclusively under the pseudonym Nico Nicole . From 1976 to 1979 he drove races in the Japanese Formula 2 Championship ; by 1981 he also took part in 18 sports car races. Since Roehreke's racing career was limited to Japan , he was barely noticed by the German media; to this day it is largely unknown in Germany. After the end of his time as an active driver, he concentrated on the Nicole Group he founded, which is based in Tokyo and now imports high-quality European vehicles to Asia. Roehreke has close business ties with BMW and the Alpina processing company .

Life

Roehreke was born as the son of the German diplomat Heinrich Röhreke . He spent his youth with his parents in Singapore and the Philippines . In 1969 his family came to Japan. When his father was transferred to China in 1972 , Roehreke, aged 20, stayed in Japan. He decided on a career as a racing driver, but also built up his own company at an early stage.

Racing career

Formula racing

Between 1976 and 1979 Roehreke contested numerous races of the Japanese Formula 2000 and the Japanese Formula 2, but did not take part in all championship races in any season. For a while he was the only foreigner who competed more or less regularly in an environment characterized by local drivers.

1976

In the fall of 1976 Roehreke first took part in a race of the Japanese Formula 2000 championship, a series whose regulations essentially corresponded to those of European Formula 2. He reported a two-year-old March 742 for the JAX Racing team , which was powered by a BMW engine.

In his first outing, the Great 20 Racers Race on September 26th at the Suzuka International Racing Course , he finished sixth. The following race, which was also the last of the championship, did not finish Röreke. He was involved in a collision at the start, which resulted in a total of four drivers being eliminated.

1977

From 1977 the previous Formula 2000 became the Japanese Formula 2 championship. The regulations remained largely unchanged. In its first year, the championship consisted of eight races, some of which had only a small field of participants. Roehreke renewed his connection to JAX Racing for 1977 , and the emergency vehicle - the March 742 - remained unchanged. It was now one of the oldest vehicles in the starting field.

Roehreke took part in four races. The best result he achieved in the second round of the season, the IV. Suzuka Diamond Trophy, which he finished seventh. He was tenth twice and twelfth once. He completely skipped the races in the second half of the year; During this time he was primarily occupied with founding his own company.

1978

In the 1978 season Roehreke started its own team, which was founded at the end of 1977 and was named Nicole Racing Japan .

Nicole Racing reported a Kauhsen Renault as an emergency vehicle . This was a racing car developed in France that had a long history in 1978. The car was designed in 1974 by Jean-Pierre Jabouille with the support of the sports car manufacturer Alpine and the mineral oil company Elf Aquitaine . It dominated the European Formula 2 Championship in 1976; his constructor won the championship title as a driver that year by a clear margin. After Jabouille switched to Formula 1 , the Aachen- based Willi Kauhsen Racing Team took over two cars that it fielded in European Formula 2 in 1977 for drivers such as Klaus Ludwig , Michel Leclère , Vittorio Brambilla and Alain Prost . The Kauhsen team could not build on the success of Jabouille; it achieved “next to nothing” in the European races in 1977. For the last race of the Japanese Formula 2 championship in 1977, Kauhsen reported one of the cars for Keke Rosberg , which failed in Suzuka after only two laps after a camshaft damage. At the end of 1977, when Kauhsen was working on promotion to Formula 1, Nicole Racing took over the car previously used by Rosberg, but was unable to achieve any success with it in the coming season.

For the first race of the Japanese Formula 2 Championship in 1978, Roehreke did not drive for his team himself. He left the car to the Italian Gianfranco Brancatelli for the Big 2 & 4 Race held in Suzuka at the beginning of March . This step is likely to be due to the connection with Kauhsen, because Brancatelli was under discussion as the driver of the future Formula 1 car from Kauhsen. Brancatelli brought the racing car home in fifth place in Suzuka.

In the second and fourth championship rounds Roehreke drove the Kauhsen himself. He did not finish the races. After Nicole Racing skipped three races in a row, the team returned to the last race of the year. At the 1978 JAF Grand Prix in Suzuka it reported a Chevron B40 with a BMW engine. Roehreke finished the race in seventh place.

1979

1979 was the last year in which Roehreke was involved as a driver in the Japanese Formula 2 championship. He only competed in one race.

Nicole Racing reported a vehicle called the Niki NK2 that was powered by a BMW engine. Little is known about this vehicle; In some internet forums the view is taken that it is a self-made Roehrekes based on the Kauhsen or Jabouille J2. The Niki NK2 first appeared in the fourth round of the championship in 1979 at Fuji International Speedway . Roehreke was the pilot. He finished eleventh and last, two laps behind. For the sixth race of the year there was another message from Nicole Racing; the team did not compete anymore.

Sports car racing

Parallel to his Formula 2 involvement, Röhreke also took part in a total of 18 sports car races from 1976 that were held in Japan. In the first few years he regularly drove a March 74S with a BMW engine, which he reported in his own name, for the JAX Racing team or for Nicole Racing. Later he also moved other vehicles, some of which were close to series production. Roehreke drove his last sports car race in 1981; the best results were several second places.

Overview:

date	run	Racetrack	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
June 6, 1976	250 km race from Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	Nico Nicole	March 74S -BMW	-	9.	-
5th September 1976	200 mile race of Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	Nico Nicole	March 74S-BMW	-	10.	-
October 10, 1976	250 km race from Fuji	Fuji international speedway	Nico Nicole	March 74S-BMW	-	5.	-
November 21, 1976	Fuji 200km race	Fuji International Speedway	Nico Nicole	March 74S-BMW	-	5.	-
March 20, 1977	300K Fuji Race	Fuji International Speedway	JAX Racing Team	March 74S-BMW	-	-	Suspension break
June 26, 1977	250 km race from Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	JAX Racing Team	March 74S-BMW	-	12.	-
4th September 1977	200 mile race of Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	JAX Racing Team	March 74S-BMW	-	8th.	-
October 8, 1977	250 km race from Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	JAX Racing Team	March 74S-BMW	-	5.	-
November 27, 1977	Fuji 200km race	Fuji International Speedway	JAX Racing Team	March 74S-BMW	-	-	Engine failure
March 26, 1978	300K Fuji Race	Fuji International Speedway	Nicole Racing Japan	March 74S-BMW	-	7th	-
4th June 1978	250 km race from Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	Nicole Racing Japan	March 74S-BMW	-	-	task
3rd September 1978	200 mile race of Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	Nicole Racing Japan	March 74S	-	-	-
October 8, 1978	250 mile race from Fuji	Fuji International Speedway	Nicole Racing Japan	March 74S-BMW	-	-	Not started after an accident
October 29, 1978	Fuji 500 Mile Race	Fuji International Speedway	Harada Racing Company	Alpine A441 - Renault	Masahiro Hasemi	2.	-
November 26, 1978	Fuji 200km race	Fuji International Speedway	Nicole Racing Japan	GRD S74 -BMW	-	6th	-
November 25, 1979	Fuji 500 Mile Race	Fuji International Speedway	Mazda Auto Tokyo	Mazda RX-7	Yōjirō Terada	5.	-
July 27, 1980	Fuji 1000 km race	Fuji International Speedway	Mazda Auto Tokyo	Chevron B36 -Mazda	Yuuichi Hagiwara	2.	-
August 30, 1981	Suzuka 1000 km race	Suzuka International Racing Course	-	Mazda RX-7	Tony Trimmer	2.	-

End of career

At the end of 1981 Nico Roehreke gave up his active racing career in favor of his group of companies. He believed that while he was a decent racing driver, he did not have the ability to advance to Formula One.

Roehreke as an entrepreneur

Japan

In 1977 Roehreke founded the company Nicole Racing Japan KK , which, in addition to running a Formula 2 racing team, was primarily concerned with importing racing accessories to Japan. Two years later, Roehreke took over the import of Alpina vehicles to Japan and in 1982 founded Nicole Automobiles KK as the exclusive sales partner for these in Japan. In 1988, Nicole Cars KK followed suit, selling BMW and Mini vehicles, and in 2009 Nicole MotorCars KK as the exclusive partner for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars . Other companies in the Nicole Group are Nicole Marketing KK from 1982, KK Nicole EuroCycle from 2009 for the import of European bicycle brands, and YK Insurity from 2002 in the insurance industry.

The Nicole Group is considered the most successful BMW partner in the Far East.

Germany

In Germany Roehreke is active in the real estate sector. His brother Alexander , who lives in Munich , runs the business .

literature

• Max Eli: Business Success in Japan. How German companies seize the opportunity . 1st edition 2004 (Gabler Verlag) ISBN 3-409-12586-8 , p. 88 ff.
• David Hodges: Racing Cars from A to Z after 1945 , Stuttgart, Motorbuch Verlag, 1994, pp. 53–55, ISBN 3-613-01477-7

Web links

• Nicole Group website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Directory of Foreign Capital Affiliated Enterprises in Japan. Business Intercommunications Incorporated, Tokyo 1983, p. 207.
2. ^ Japan Directory 2001. The Japan Press, 2000
3. ^ Eli: Business successes in Japan. P. 88.
4. ↑ ^{a b} biography from March 2011 on the website www.eurobiz.jp  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) (accessed on June 22, 2011).
5. ↑ Hodges (p. 122) thinks that Roehreke used a car called JAX in 1976. Such a designation is not found in the reporting documents. For the details of the Japanese season, cf. the statistics of the Formula 2 races 1976 on the website www.formula2.net (accessed on June 22, 2011).
6. ↑ Hodges, p. 125.
7. ↑ Overview of the Roehrekes racing successes on the website www.racingsportscars.com (accessed on June 22, 2011).
8. ↑ On the website www.racingsportscars.com the result is listed as unknown ("result unknown"); the entry "49 laps behind winner" suggests that Roehreke left early.
9. ↑ ニ コ ル ・ レ ー シ ン グ ・ ジ ャ パ ン 株式会社 / NICOLE RACING JAPAN CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
10. ↑ "Alpina shows its flag in Tokyo" ( sport auto -Online on October 6, 2009)
11. ^ Nicole Automobiles | ALPINA. Nicole Automobiles, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese). 
12. ↑ ニ コ ル ・ オ ー ト モ ビ ル ズ 株式会社 / NICOLE AUTOMOBILES CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
13. ↑ ニ コ ル ・ カ ー ズ 株式会社 / NICOLE CARS CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
14. ↑ Nicole MotorCars 株式会社 / NICOLE MOTORCARS CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
15. ↑ ニ コ ル ・ マ ー ケ テ ィ ン グ 株式会社 / NICOLE MARKETING CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
16. ↑ 株式会社 Nicole EuroCycle / NICOLE EUROCYCLE CO., LTD. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
17. ↑ 有限会社 イ ン シ ュ リ テ ィ / INSURITY INC. Nicole Group of Companies, accessed June 23, 2011 (Japanese, English). 
18. ^ Eli: Business successes in Japan. P. 88 ff.
19. ↑ Stefan Straus: The last bastion. In: Berliner Zeitung of March 29, 2017, p. 3 (accessed on March 29, 2017).