The line of well-wishers waiting for autographs outside his transporter are getting longer each week. The number of fans wearing his gear seems to grow every race.
In just a few short years, Alexander Rossi has transformed himself from IndyCar’s great unknown to a building block for the future and one of its most marketable stars.
“It’s been very cool for me to see from Year 1 until now — almost the end of Year 3 — the amount of people wearing my shirts and hats and wanting to talk to me at autograph sessions,” Rossi recently said in Portland. “That’s really increased.”
The road here hasn’t been easy. There was a time when Rossi seemed to be almost universally disliked by the IndyCar world. But whether he meant to or not, over the past three years, he’s turned many of those doubters into believers.