Elise Alexander

**Elise Alexander** (born 17 January 2003) is an American professional racing driver, currently competing in the Champ Car World Series for Striker Motorsports. She is the daughter of 2006 Indycar World Champion, Michael Alexander.

## Early Years

Alexander was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, the only child of Michael and Laura Alexander. Elise was raised around racing due to her father's status in the Indycar World Championship, where he drove for Highlight Racing. Elise was present when her father won the 2006 title, at the age of 3, and there were plans for Elise to begin amateur karting by the time she turned 5.

Alexander was with her mother, Laura, when her father, Michael, and 8 others were killed in a private plane crash near Elizabethtown, Kentucky in 2007. Michael and his team were on their way to Kentucky Speedway for an IndyCar race when the plane encountered a bird strike, bringing the plane down into a forest. There were no survivors from the crash, and the loss temporarily pushed the Alexander family away from racing to allow time to grieve.

## Champ Car career

### Striker Motorsports

#### 2022 Season

Alexander was promoted by Striker Motorsports from the Atlantic Championship following her three wins in the series in 2021. Alexander was selected to replace the outgoing Lucien Lachapelle, with the team securing her father's old car number 11, in place of 22, which the team had run as early as 2010, when Tanya Porter began racing for the team. Alexander earned the support of her father's old sponsors as well, with Geico, and FedEx sponsoring her for the entire season. For 2022, she'd be paired with a duo of experienced drivers. Natalia Kirichenko entered 2022 as the team's leading driver, while Matheus Michelin joined the team after leaving Swift Knight Autosport. Stephanie Porter-Kelley, the team's owner, also spent time over the pre-season to coach Alexander personally, especially during the pre-season tests at Sebring and Fontana, to get her up to speed with the more difficult Champ Car machinery.

## Personal Life

Alexander graduated from high school in 2021 with honors, and was her high school's valedictorian. She's routinely expressed her interest in music, being a fan of hard rock. She's also developed a daredevil reputation, being an avid dirt bike rider, and having tested world class grand prix superbikes at Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, and Laguna Seca.

Alexander has little recollection of her father, as she expressed during an interview in 2021 with CRC Network, explaining that the only memories she recalls of her father are the trophies her mother kept following his death. She has expressed, however, that her father's death has made her very weary of airplanes, preferring to travel by train or by car whenever possible. For the entire 2021 Atlantic Championship season, Alexander drove to every event, refusing to take a plane for the longer distance commutes from Nashville to the West Coast. For the opening rounds of the 2022 Champ Car season, Alexander flew with her teammates on a passenger jet, the first time she'd flown since she was 4 years old. She would travel by plane for the start of the European leg of the season to get to Valkenburg, as well as to return to the U.S. following the round from Magny-Cours, but drove between the Netherlands and France to make the second race in Europe.