Apache rewrite empty regex (root)

I've got Apache 2.4.4 running on Windows 8 laptop (WAMP server) and I found a really odd behavior of .htaccess mod_rewrite rules.

I want to redirect the root of my website to a specific file. My .htaccess looks like this:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule $^ /static/home.php

This works only if there's no index.php file in root directory. When I create index.php file, Apache redirects empty path straight to the index file and doesn't bother with the aformentioned RewriteRule.

Is there a way to have both this RewriteRule and index.php file working together?

Ans ))  You can just tweak your regex pattern to work in both situation:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^(index\.php)?$ /static/home.php [L]

This will route both domain.com/ and domain/com/index.php to static page.