Rossi sits inside his Formula BMW USA car at a 2007 race. Photo courtesy of Jim Exline. 

TERRE HAUTE, In. — Hundreds of cars rumble down Terre Haute’s Poplar Street every day. Most of those motorists clatter over the busy CSX railroad crossing just east of 10th Street.

If you pass by that way — or more likely, if you get stopped by a train — look to the south side of the road. You will see a Dollar General store, but closer to the railroad tracks, you will see a couple of weathered concrete slabs that seem lost to time.

Those slabs, unremarkable though they unquestionably are, provide the only evidence left of what was once a beehive of auto racing activity. An operation that didn’t last very long, but whose influence has reached all the way to the Winner’s Circle at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the most prestigious event in all of auto racing.

Indianapolis 500 champion Alexander Rossi’s surprise victory last Sunday caught most racing observers off guard. Though Rossi is an American driver — he hails from Auburn, Calif. — his racing lineage is almost entirely European. Until he came to the IndyCar Series this year, he raced in Europe exclusively from 2008-15.

Just before that, at the dawn of his career, Rossi raced stateside for a scrappy Terre Haute-based team — Team Apex USA Racing.

It wanted to get in on the ground floor of open-wheel racing. Then 15, Rossi was just trying to learn the open-wheel game. As was Team Apex. Together they prospered and Rossi was launched towards his destiny as an Indianapolis 500 champion.

To know the story of Rossi, one must also know the story of Team Apex Racing USA.

Jim Exline, of Sullivan, and David Hunt, of Terre Haute, had long been compadres in the local racing scene. Hunt was a former sprint car driver and Exline was a long-time supporter and business partner. In the early 2000s, they both had the desire to get involved in open-wheel racing. Exline, the team principal, would handle the business side. Hunt, the general manager, would be directly involved in the racing itself in co-ownership.

Both Exline and Hunt believed Terre Haute was a good place to base a racing team. Aside from the Hulman family ownership of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the area had a lively local racing scene, and there was also ready-made talent available at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology to cover the engineering side of things. Indiana State University was also planning its motorsports program at the time.

The team was conceived in 2004, but it wasn’t sure at what level it would get involved. At the same time, BMW was investing heavily in motorsports, with its then-factory supported Formula One team being at the top of its ladder.

BMW had a ladder system at the youth level, and the Bavarian conglomerate’s intent was to have spokes all over the world feeding its wheel. To that end, the Formula BMW USA series was born in an effort to encourage more North American participation in the sport.

From the beginning, it was designed to be the first step from go-karting to formula cars as a driver development series. The series ran two races per weekend in support of road races conducted by Formula One, Champ Car (formerly CART) and the American LeMans Series.

Formula BMW’s model appealed to Team Apex and that’s where it cast its lot. Team members got started in 2005 and ran their team out of local sprint car driver Jason Lynch’s Seelyville garage, far removed from the Formula One paddocks their drivers aspired to.

“We came from this dirt track background. For the first couple of races, we had a Formula BMW race car parked next to weed-eaters and lawn mowers,” Exline said. “I remember David calling me from Road Atlanta, which was the first test. We went down in a run-down hauler. He told me there were haulers and semi transporters just like you’d see at Indy.”

Ultimately, Team Apex grew to the point where it rented the former Hertz distribution center at 929 Poplar Street. It was there that Team Apex had its greatest success. Team Apex tapped into the local market as planned to build the team. Nick Snyder — a Rose-Hulman graduate — got his start with the team and is now engineering manager at Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, home of Indianapolis 500 pole-sitter James Hinchcliffe.

In 2005, Team Apex hired Canadian driver Robert Wickens, who participated via a BMW youth scholarship, and they had immediate success. Wickens won three races for Team Apex, including a win on the Formula One road course at Indianapolis in 2006 in a support race for the U.S. Grand Prix. It is believed to be the only time a Terre Haute-based team won at Indy.

“Yeah, they’re dirt-trackers,” said Wickens in a 2006 interview with the Tribune-Star, referring to Exline and Hunt. “But Terre Haute is a motorsports kind of community. It’s not abnormal for them to be doing what they’re doing, even if it’s in a different series. Formula BMW is a great series and they recognized that.”

Wickens, who by then had signed a Red Bull Junior Driver contract, was whisked away from Team Apex by Red Bull’s upper management after his Indy success. It was a bitter pill for Team Apex to swallow. Wickens went on to become a Formula One test driver and has enjoyed a successful career since 2012 in DTM, the marquee series in the world for touring cars.

However, Wickens’ success put Team Apex on the map. Other burgeoning drivers were taking notice … like Rossi.

Rossi joins

Rossi, who had raced go-karts and who had driven at the Skip Barber Racing School, broke into Formula BMW with former IndyCar driver Richie Hearn’s operation in 2007. Rossi, however, was unhappy there, and was seeking a new ride early in the Formula BMW season.

Team Apex already had a two-car team with Robert Thorne and Lindsey Adams, but Adams was on the verge of running out of funding, and a spot would become open. In the week before the 2007 U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, Rossi’s father, Pieter, got in touch with Team Apex. It was a fortuitous time to make the call.

Exline conveyed a story that illustrated the crossroads Rossi was at in his young career at that point.

“I remember getting an e-mail from Alex’s grandma at the end of the year. She said she was forever grateful that they found us. She said that she really thought Alex would have dropped out of racing because he was unhappy. She said his year [with Team Apex] was so enjoyable that he got back on track. Pieter said we were the right team at the right time,” Exline said.

Rossi did not race for Team Apex in the Formula BMW races at Indianapolis, but joined Team Apex for the weekend races at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut on July 4.

From the start, both Exline and Hunt noted that Rossi was introverted, a trait that was noted nationally when he became the Indianapolis 500 champion.

“What I remember about Alex is that he was quiet kid, but not shy and not aloof, but confident. He was never a problem to deal with,” Exline noted.

Because of his personality, they weren’t sure what they had on their hands after Rossi’s first test drive at Lime Rock.

“We go out for the first session and he was mid-pack, then all of the sudden, he was top three in his very first practice. He came back [to the pits], got out of the car, and didn’t really acknowledge the team. He ran straight to his rental car with his parents. I asked, ‘what did we do wrong?’ How was he that dissatisfied?” Hunt wondered.

It turns out that Rossi’s momentary escape from the team was for joyous reasons.

“He went to his driver de-brief and I talked to his father and asked if there was a problem. He said Alexander was so excited he came straight to the car to tell us he thinks he can win in this car,” Hunt said.

Rossi shows talent

Though he handled all aspects of the racing operation, Hunt’s role at Team Apex was as much racing coach as anything else given that he was dealing with teen-aged drivers. From the start, Hunt noticed a maturity in Rossi that was unusual for drivers that age.

“From [his first test] on, my role was rebuilding his confidence. Not only did we have a good team supporting him, but we wanted to help him as a young person working his crew and dealing with adversity. I spent time mentoring him through those things. The racing side took care of itself,” Hunt said.

Rossi got very quick, very fast in the Team Apex operation. After a week of acclimation at Lime Rock, Rossi won one of the two races at the San Jose, California, street course in late July 2007. He won again in one of the races at Road America by a .0004-second margin over Estaban Gutierrez, who is currently driving for American-based Haas F1 in Formula One.

However, the victory that sticks out for both Exline and Hunt was Rossi’s victory in the 2007 season finale weekend at Mosport Park, a venerable 2.4-mile road course near Toronto. It was also the victory that most closely resembles Rossi’s Indianapolis 500 win.

“It was getting ready to rain and David made the call to start in rain tires. These were sprint races, so there was no pit strategy usually. They made the decision to do it and [Rossi] went with it,” Exline said.

For Rossi to be successful with Hunt’s strategy, he had to be patient, and likely, ride out some difficult laps to wait for the weather to cooperate and for the strategy to play out. This is hard for any driver, much less a 15-year-old one.

“I got buy-in from Alexander. We ran two or three laps under green and it was eating up the rain tires. Alexander came on the radio and said, ‘I don’t think this is a good idea, but I’ll keep trying.’ Right about then, I’ll never forget it, I felt that first drop of rain. It started pouring. Everyone else had to come in the pits and Team Apex finished 1-2 on the strategy call,” Hunt said.

In a similar fashion, Rossi had to patiently ride out team owner Bryan Herta’s fuel mileage strategy in his Indianapolis 500 victory. Rossi had to hit a fuel number as early as the mid-point of the race and keep hitting it. He wasn’t sure it would work, but stuck with it.

“It’s an incredible parallel. It’s exactly the same thing,” Hunt said. “The average race fan has no idea the amount of skill and concentration from the driver it takes to win on strategy.”

Moving on

As successful as they were — Rossi won three of the eight races he ran for Team Apex — the dog-eat-dog world of European racing ultimately took him away from Team Apex just as it did in the case of Wickens. Like Wickens, Rossi moved to the EuroInternational Formula BMW team at the behest of BMW. He won the 2008 Formula BMW championship there and then won Formula BMW World Final. The reward was a test drive with the BMW Sauber team.

“We were driver focused. What we didn’t have was a connection with the next level up. As I look back on it, the one mistake we made was not creating a European-style relationship with a team somewhere in Europe. We missed that part of it because it’s not an American business model,” Exline said.

Formula One was always Rossi’s ambition, and Rossi climbed his career ladder. Rossi was a three-time winner in GP2, Formula One’s equivalent to Indy Lights, and a prominent series many IndyCar drivers have driven in. Rossi won at famous circuits like Monza and Spa. Rossi ultimately realized his F1 dream. He was first a test driver for the former Caterham team and then ran five races for the Formula One Manor Marussia team in 2015.

In 2008, Team Apex moved its operation to Brownsburg (the shop on Poplar Street was torn down a few years later), to be closer to the many racing teams based there, but by then, the twin clouds of the Great Recession and a changing motorsports landscape were building and the resulting storm would be too difficult for the team to overcome.

Team Apex moved its operation into the Star Mazda Series, another feeder series that has produced IndyCar talent. However, Team Apex could not replicate the same success it had in Formula BMW (which ended its North American series in 2009) and Team Apex closed down after the 2010 season.

“Everything started going topsy-turvy. We moved into Mazda. We had wealthier kids, but less talented kids, and we couldn’t get back to Victory Circle. The recession hammered motorsport. Driver counts went down. The [IndyCar-Champ Car] unification occurred and they started rebuilding [the feeder series]. We had big aspirations at first, but by then, it was just another job and it just wasn’t as fun,” Exline said.

Rossi wins the 500

Exline and Hunt have both followed Rossi’s exploits from afar and have maintained contact with Pieter Rossi. Alexander Rossi himself moved to London. Both Exline and Hunt assumed Rossi would make his racing career there, as Wickens has, and didn’t think they’d see him race on these shores anytime soon.

However, even though Rossi realized his goal of attaining a F1 ride in 2015, it doesn’t mean he was immune from the sport’s cutthroat way of doing business. Rossi was out of a seat at the newly named Manor Racing, despite encouraging drives for the back-marker team in 2015. Rossi remains under contract to Manor as a reserve driver.

Without a ride for 2016, Rossi signed with Andretti Autosport and eventually earned a seat with Herta’s operation, which had been merged into the Andretti empire.

Exline attended the IndyCar Series opener at St. Petersburg, Florida, and was pleased to watch Rossi and catch up with Pieter, with whom he discussed commercial possibilities in an IndyCar world that the Rossi’s were unfamiliar with. However, both Exline and Hunt most looked forward to Indianapolis.

Hunt is still involved in racing and worked as a Turn 3 spotter for J.R. Hildebrand. Hunt was pleased to be able to see Rossi face-to-face for the first time in almost a decade.

“He had that smile that I maybe didn’t expect to see. He was relaxed and I think he’s enjoying racing in the U.S. It’s a different vibe than what he’s used to,” Hunt said. “It was a great moment for me to see this boy who had raced with us become a great young man.”

Since Hunt is pre-occupied with his spotter responsibilities, he didn’t have time to watch Rossi’s race, but he made sure he was near someone who was.

“You have to hyper-focus on your guy as a spotter. One of my good friends, Jason Burgess, is Alexander’s Turn 3 spotter, one of the best in the business, and I stood next to Jason on the spotter’s stand. That was my way of knowing what was going on. During yellow flags, we’d compare notes,” Hunt said.

Meanwhile, Exline attended the 500 as a fan.

“When I went into the race that day, my expectation was, ‘Have a good day Alex. Finish in the top 10. Get a good payday. Get the Rookie of the Year.’ When he came close to being in the Fast 9 [in qualifying], I was ecstatic,” Exline said.

Like everyone else, it took some time for Rossi’s fuel economy strategy to become evident to Exline.

“I wasn’t expecting him to win, I expected him to do well. I don’t think his dad thought he’d win. I don’t think Alex thought he’d win,” Exline said. “When it got down to the last 20 laps, I knew he had a shot. I knew he wouldn’t make a mistake. When he won? It was emotional. It was really cool. It’s just surreal. I can’t believe it happened, but on the other hand, I’m not surprised because he’s talented.”

Hildebrand, who finished sixth, completed all 200 laps and kept Hunt occupied until the finish. However, Hunt knew something special was about to happen when he saw Burgess flip out in the spotters’ stand high atop the Turn 3 grandstands.

“I saw Jason Burgess throw his hands in the air and take off down the spotters’ stand and I knew Alex had won,” Hunt said. “I’m up there in the spotters’ stand, looking at all of these kids who came through our program, who came through Formula BMW. It was very exciting and moving.”

Though Rossi didn’t race for Team Apex for long, and though the team itself only ran its operation out of Terre Haute for three racing seasons, the fact that Rossi once raced for a team that was based here was not lost on the men who created the team.

“It’s amazing. We have tremendous pride. Our community is so deeply tied to racing, much of it tied to the Indy 500, but also the Terre Haute Action Track and racing in general. Our community has such deep roots in racing,” Hunt said.