UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Many Penn State students fill their free time with extracurricular activities, part-time jobs or volunteer work. Relatively few spend that free time on a racetrack. That’s exactly where you would find senior telecommunications major Alison Cumens, though.
After a year of watching her little brother learn to drive years ago, Cumens, then just 8, decided it was her turn. She began to learn the basics of the sport she would grow to love on the small go-cart track at her family home in Downingtown, Pa.
It didn’t take long before she was ready to take the first step and begin racing competitively in quarter-midget cars.
Now, when she can find time away from her studies, she travels all over the East Coast to compete on some of the best tracks in the country. Each racing season she drives in as many as two dozen races, depending on the weather.
These days, Cumens races a much larger three-quarter-midget car in the American Three Quarter Midget Association (ATQMA). During a typical race, she completes about 25 laps traveling at an average speed of 120 mph.
Cumens has built a reputation as one of the most consistent drivers in the business as she routinely earns points in nearly all of her races. That consistency helped Cumens claim a championship three years ago despite not placing first in a single race that year.
“Going into the very last race of the year I was in fifth place in the standings. Somehow on the last lap everyone got jumbled around and I finished fourth in the race,” she said. Immediately after the race, her mom came running down from the scorer’s tower to share the good news -- Alison had won the championship.
Last September, all of Cumens hard work and patience paid off. She earned her first feature win, becoming only the second female in history to get a victory at Oswego Speedway in Oswego, N. Y.
The victory came with a cash prize of $1,000. The real payoff came when she received a phone call from the owner of Oswego Speedway offering her the opportunity to drive for his company. The offer came with a significant upgrade in size and power in the car she will drive -- moving up to the supermodified division.
Those larger cars are powered by a 900-horsepower engine and are capable of reaching speeds in excess of 165 mph. She’ll compete on bigger tracks in longer races, some as many as 200 laps.
She appreciates the opportunity and was enthusiastic after a recent test session. “I wouldn’t say it was hard,” she said, “just very, very different.”
The adrenaline-infused sport certainly doesn’t come without its risks. Cumens and her brother learned that early in their careers when they had several engines explode during races.
“It’s really scary,” Cumens said. “If there’s a fire you pretty much have to climb out of the car over top of the engine.” Since then the Cumens family has put quick releases on the wing that sits above the driver’s head in the three-quarter-midget cars so, in the event of a fire, Cumens and her brother can exit quickly and safely.
Cumens had originally planned to take a break from racing for the entire fall season so she could focus on classwork during the week and attend every Penn State football game during her senior year. But, with the added supermodified opportunity, she probably will race at Oswego Speedway and miss the first football game. She said that will be the only one she misses, though.
Of course, she’ll be proudly supporting Penn State even from afar. She has a Nittany Lion head on her neck safety device when racing and her racing helmet looks like a Penn State football helmet.