My Story
Chapter three
Unplaned exposure.
Through networking at a motorsport event in early 2014, I made contact with several German motor TV personalities They got in touch with me and we produced a graphics kits, leathe rsuits and jerseys, which were permanently displayed in the show. This way the IR logo got free advertising time on TV. I didn’t notice it at first until friends pointed it out to me.
I had charged for the items at a discount because TV, but without any marketing ulterior motive.
Why would I? They are car fans, not racers.
After that, street Supermoto riders, wo apparently were watching car shows, started asking if we would make graphics for the “SMCR 690.” No… why? Who even rides that—personally, I didn’t think much of those bikes.
After a bit of research, it turned out that in Germany, more SMCR 690s are registered per year than Motocross bikes of all brands combined. It was rank 6 in the registration statistics—a perennial favorite. The focus shifted completely to this model and others of a similar kind. No competitor had recognized the trend yet. The customer was simple much simpler.
Suddenly, everything ran directly through shop orders and no longer manually via email. Gregor created and added a few designs to the shop as quickly as possible. I hardly looked at them. I couldn’t stand to see “moto design” anymore.
Thanks to the KTM license, the graphics sold like hotcakes despite having an SEO-less shop.
This had to be it—the exit. I turned my back on the racing business by charging prices similar to those for street motorcycle customers—the rest took care of itself.
It was now known that I could produce things, which led to inquiries of all kinds. Everything that others rejected due to deadlines being too short or feasibility issues, I would implement—at a premium.
I knew how to aquire the correct manuafturer for the job. For a few years, I produced the Sucuk und Bratwurst merchandise, large-scale jersey production for Shoei, and for the König Galerie Berlin, I made several art merchandise productions & for the Google Pixel 3 pop-up store campaign in Germany, I was commissioned to produce the intended promotional textiles as a full custom print-and-sew production in large quantities, within just 2.5 weeks.
Pure middleman work would bring in as much money with one order as a quarter year of work with Independent Racing.
With the end of my studies, the desire for creative work eventually began. My share of graphic work was, at most, arranging graphic parts as space-savingly as possible so that no vinyl was wasted in production. At 26, I swore to myself to earn a lot of money quickly enough so that I could then live out my creativity 100% free from the distraction of work. By age 35 at the latest, I wanted to have realized a screenplay. Film and story were always the areas where I felt most comfortable, but nothing was left of that other than binge-watching Breaking Bad and Californication.
Vámonos, Vámonos!
In 2015, I broke my upper arm on a race Saturday. My first serious injury in all those years of racing. On Monday, I was back in the office. Now moving on foot a lot, going to rehab and such, finally gave me time to think. I had to get out. Escape the hamster wheel and my relationship that had turned bad. I bought an old Honda and customized it. A new passion evoked. It was creative, it was craftsmanship, I could travel with it.
Now separated from my longtime girlfriend, I also wanted to leave racing behind. In the spring of the following year, I met my wife Anja. At the same time, I set off with two friends on the first motorcycle tour of my life. Southern France, to “Wheels and Waves,” a motorcycle festival with a surf and skate influences. I was floored—a completely different vibe, new perspectives. People with a sense of style, no sponsor logos, no garish colors. I could never go back.
Independent Racing continued to exist, but I escaped into various other self-inflicted projects. A mountain bike clothing brand, a fitness clothing brand initiated by a school friend, an online cleaning supplies wholesaler and Amazon Fulfillment. Everything revolved around selling. None would survive the conceptual phase because nothing felt right.
Paying rent is a waste, not efficient. I needed something of my own. A short time later, an affordable commercial plot was found on the outskirts of Mainz. I drew my dream building in Adobe Illustrator and an architect friend executed the final drawing. My budget: whatever the bank would give me, the rest would work itself out.
The construction was finally financed thanks to a bank advisor friend, without him it would have never been financed.
With the help of one of the construction company guys, I foundall the building companies I needed. We got along well and for the next two years, the people from that industry would be the ones I spent the most time with .
At the end of 2018, the building was finished. Through the referred contacts, I received generous discounts, which incredibly led to the project remaining feasible for me.
Now I had lived it out; after all, a building from my own pen had become a reality. But how was the source of income doing? New models came out, and our best-seller, the SMCR 690, got a facelift. The competitors had not been sleeping. Nothing significant had changed on the shop; it was running, after all. Every now and then, a few quick social media campaigns; elaborate advertising didn’t pull—people bought based on price. I had already resigned myself to this during my studies—know your market…
In mid-2019, the shop received an update with a simple configurator. It was supposed to run until we switch to a ,internally implemented, more flexible WooCommerce system.
That same year at Christmas, Anja and I traveled to Stockholm. We were taken by the Swedish mentality and made the decision to move to Sweden in 5-10 years. I had just built, and Anja had just started her job as a teacher.
Finally home.
2020 and finally Corona was on and I was 33. For me, nothing changed; Anja, on the other hand, was practically (paid) unemployed since all schools were closed. She started designing a food blog with WordPress. I saw enormous potential and the fun she had with it, quite unlike her work as a teacher. Out of an abundance of time, Anja then looked at Swedish real estate sites for houses—no serious intention. Sometime in October, she forwarded me the ad for our current residence. It fulfilled all criteria, at a price that seemed unbelievable, in the middle of the Swedish forest. A week later, I signed the purchase contract on-site.
Anja would now quit the secure teaching job and begin a distance learning degree in media informatics. On the side, she would build the new Independent Racing WooCommerce shop—that’s just like WordPress, right?
A year later, 2021, the time had come, and we, including all machines, moved to Sweden. Home office was now in fashion, so everyone involved could continue working from home. I put the building on a german real estate portal, it was sold the next day at the asking price. Because I had built so cheaply and did not have to pay a brokers fee, so I now had made a profit and was left a pleasant cushion to breathe. As we had a guesthouse in Sweden, my parents moved with us. It would turn out to be a mistake.
Anja worked on the new website until the developer agency for the product configurator stopped responding; we now had half-finished software for a lot of money. My father still worked a bit in production, and I took some time off and was mainly active around the property and house. Shortly before the birth of our daughter in 2023, I realized it was time to stop living just off my savings. But because my horizon was very one-sidedly aligned due to years of raking in the cash, I stayed stuck on “online product” and chose the path of every bored housewife: an Etsy shop. Designing digital graphics once and selling them X times without much effort. Smart.
I just have to really learn Photoshop again, then it’ll go fast. In over 1000 hours, I built an automated Photoshop file and prompt templates for easy image creation. In four months, I learned more new things than in the past 12 years, but I was so (positively) consumed by the process that I didn’t notice how the market was suddenly flooded with that kind of stuff at dumping prices.
Back to the drawing board.
When my parents moved out again in 2024, we converted the guest house into an Airbnb—a success that gave us the financial freedom to remodel Independent Racing. The configurator company was reachable again, and I felt we finally had to finish the halted six-year-old project. Anja developed the website, I developed an ecosystem for tailor-made leather suits—a product with high margins and zero production effort for us. The process was stressful but refreshing; I was under the false impression that I could now satisfy my inner design junkie with Independent Racing work too.
We tested the leather suits easily, and after a promising proof of concept, we realized an elaborate configurator.
The idea was set: we would lead Independent Racing to new heights.
The shop was finished just in time for Black Friday 2025; from then until New Year’s, I spent my time specifically running an elaborate video campaign and several others. The result was sobering. In my mind, the internet would applaud me for my creative genious. But just like every other of those identical, earlier attempts, the internet didn‘t care. The community wanted cheap products. I fell into a mental hole and questioned my entire life.
In January 2026, however, I finally realized that I was seeking recognition from a group of people that were out to buy stuff and not looking for great creative work. I would not present a case to the market department of a large client. I was selling flashy personalized products to private individuals in a niche market, expecting them to clap for my great ad concept.
This Realization changed my standing with Independent Racing, finally enabeling me to let go. This „brand“ had been my holistic identity for over 17 years. I WAS Independent Racing, without ever wanting to be identified with it.
Now 38, IR—my self-created golden cage—was the only thing I knew and had to show for myself. I never had a job, I never had a boss, I never had guidance. Never actually havin an answer to what my job description actually was, I finally knew what it should be. I wanted to do Art Direction and copywriting, not run a company, that I was certain about now.
A portfolio website had to be created. During my studies, I had won several competitions and now wanted to repeat that to somehow represent my skills. After a short search in mid-January, I found the D&AD New Blood Award, which I have never heard of before. My profile fit. I decided on a brief and, delayed by several circumstances, began working on it at the end of February—2.5 weeks, 12 hours a day, until the, kindly 3 days extended, deadline. I won a Pencil.
To date, the only evaluation of my ability had taken the form of good sales; never since my Bachelor’s had someone qualified evaluated my work. All self-doubt vanished. I would now complete my portfolio and, with the D&AD Award as a reference, have a real chance to work on valuable projects as a freelancer. This time, not for the money, but for the love of design.