Every Ball Has a Story

Lew Alexandar calls himself “the Driver.” It is a title delivered with enough confidence to sound official and enough honesty to include the footnote: he has no mechanical skills.

That description is funny, but incomplete. Lew is a longtime track driver, an instructor and coach at 539 Driving Academy, a 539 Racing principal, a Ball Pit Motorsports driver and one of the people Roshan trusted when it was time to stop simply attending track days and start investing deliberately in driver development.

His motorsports story began on two wheels, paused after a serious street accident and restarted in a car. The machinery changed. The reasons he kept coming back did not: adrenaline, friendship and the chance to keep learning.

“The car can change. The discipline can change. The reason to come back is the same: learn something, feel something and share it with good people.”

From Motorcycles to Cars

Lew began riding motorcycles on track in 2006. Four years later, a street accident involving another motorist ended that chapter. He stepped away from track riding in 2010—not because the interest disappeared, but because the consequences had become impossible to ignore.

In 2016, he returned to the track in a car. The move offered a different kind of challenge: more mass, four contact patches, a new relationship with weight transfer and an entirely different set of decisions at speed.

He has not looked back.

That arc matters because Lew did not arrive in car culture as someone collecting credentials. He arrived as an experienced student starting over in a new discipline. The willingness to reset, learn and build experience again is still visible in the way he coaches other drivers.

“The Driver,” Not the Mechanic

Lew’s preferred job title is also his most reliable paddock joke.

He is “the Driver” because, in his words, he has no mechanical skills. Ball Pit Motorsports respects the clarity. Every functioning race team eventually needs someone who can diagnose an electrical fault, someone who knows where the spare axle is—and someone prepared to put on a helmet while everybody else is still arguing about torque specifications.

The joke also reflects something useful about amateur motorsports: nobody has to master every part of the sport before belonging in it. Drivers can learn from mechanics. Mechanics can learn from data. Instructors can remain students. Good teams work because people contribute different strengths and know when to ask for help.

Teaching the Classroom—and the Driver

Instruction is not a side note in Lew’s profile. It is central to how he contributes to North Texas motorsports.

Lew leads classroom training for Apex Driving Academy and also instructs through programs that include Eagles Canyon Raceway’s Integrated Performance Driving program. In the classroom, the objective is not to make speed sound mysterious. It is to give drivers a framework they can carry into the car: vision, decision-making, weight transfer, consistency and enough self-awareness to recognize when enthusiasm is outrunning skill.

Eagles Canyon describes itself first as a driver-development facility, with an education ladder spanning introductory instruction through advanced racecraft. Lew’s work fits that idea. Better driving is not one breakthrough lap. It is a process of building judgment, feedback and repeatable habits.

Roshan’s First Private Coach

Lew was Roshan’s first private instructor after Roshan moved beyond the standard novice and intermediate HPDE structure.

That timing mattered. Group instruction had created a foundation, but progress was becoming less about learning the basic line and more about understanding what Roshan was doing, why the car was responding and where an old habit was limiting the next step.

Private coaching made the work more deliberate. Instead of waiting for a general lesson to happen to match the problem, Roshan could focus on the specific gap between where he was and where he wanted to be.

Ball Pit Motorsports’ recommendation is personal: intermediate drivers who are ready to invest in themselves should consider working privately with Lew. That is not a paid endorsement or a generic claim that every driver needs the same path. It comes from Roshan’s direct experience of moving from organized track days toward more intentional development.

A good coach does not merely tell a driver to go faster. A good coach helps the driver understand what must become calmer, earlier, smoother or more consistent before speed is safe and repeatable.

Lew Alexandar coaching Roshan on a private student day doing a track walk to understand ricochet

From Coaching to Competition

Lew is not finished developing his own driving.

He recently purchased a BMW E36 race car and is working to build more racing experience. That next step places him back in the student’s seat—this time with the added perspective of someone who spends much of his track life helping other drivers improve.

The E36 is more than another project. It is a commitment to racecraft: starts, traffic, strategy, decision-making around other cars and the discipline required to finish. Coaching experience provides a strong foundation, but wheel-to-wheel racing still creates its own education.

Lew is also a principal of 539 Racing, where the same themes appear again: team structure, shared responsibility, driver development and the reality that amateur endurance racing is sustained as much by preparation and friendship as by pace.

After years of coaching other drivers, Lew’s E36 marks the next chapter in his own competition education - Lew letting Roshan by in his E36 only for Roshan to have a big moment at Tombstone. 

A Ball Pit Driver at the Apex Enduro

Lew’s connection to Ball Pit Motorsports extends beyond instruction. He is part of the driver group preparing for the Apex Enduro.

Endurance racing exposes the difference between a collection of quick individuals and a functioning team. Drivers have to share the car, communicate what changed, protect equipment and make decisions that preserve the next stint. The fastest lap matters less if the car cannot reach the next driver.

That makes Lew a natural fit. He brings coaching language, experience and the ability to help a group align around what the car and the event require. He also brings the useful confidence of “the Driver”—a man willing to accept that somebody else may still need to handle the wrenching.

For Ball Pit Motorsports, the Enduro is a practical expression of the larger idea behind the brand. The cars create access, but the people create the experience. A shared result is built from instruction, preparation, trust, driver changes, repairs and the moments between sessions that never appear on a timing sheet.

Lew & Roshan working through the track - Endurance racing turns individual drivers into a team—and makes communication as important as lap time.

Why He Keeps Coming Back

Lew’s answer is direct: the adrenaline rush and the friends he has made in the sport.

The adrenaline explains the first lap. The friendships explain the years.

Tracks create unusual communities because everyone eventually needs help. A driver forgets a tool. A car develops a noise. A student needs one clear explanation. A team needs another set of hands. People who might never meet anywhere else spend a weekend sharing data, shade, spare parts and opinions about tire pressure.

Lew has built his place in that community as a driver who teaches and a teacher who still drives. He helps make the next step feel possible without pretending the work is easy.

What Comes Next

The immediate chapter is simple: more racing experience in the E36, continued work with 539 Racing, continued instruction and another endurance-racing challenge with Ball Pit Motorsports.

The longer view is more valuable. Lew represents the kind of handler Ball Pit Motorsports wants around its cars: experienced without being finished, serious about safety without draining the fun out of the paddock, and willing to help another driver progress.

He may continue insisting that he has no mechanical skills.

We will continue making sure someone else brings the tools.

Where to Go Next

Meet the Handlers — Meet the drivers, instructors, crew, friends and family behind Ball Pit Motorsports.

Meet Roshan P. Vani — Read the story of the student who became a driver, instructor and Ball Pit founder.

Learn at Eagles Canyon Raceway — Explore driver-development, coaching and racing opportunities at ECR.

Browse Ball Pit stories — Follow the cars, people, repairs and expensive education behind the brand.