This article first appeared in the April, 2016 edition of SportsCar Magazine. SCCA members can read the current and past editions of SportCar digitally here after logging into their account; To become an SCCA member and get SportsCar mailed to your home address monthly in addition to the digital editions, click here.

Many readers will need no introduction to Alyssa Lewis who, at 20, is already a veteran Dixie Region Solo competitor and, along with her parents, Robert and Tracy Lewis, a welcome and familiar fixture on the National Solo scene.

At the 2015 Solo National Championships, in just her third year of Solo Nationals competition, Lewis finished second in C Prepared Ladies, just behind class winner Brianne Maier.

Officially a card-carrying SCCA member since 1997, Lewis explains that she “started coming to events when I was 2 years old.” The Dixie Region, she adds, is like her second family.

Her parents introduced both her and her older sister, Kristin, to autocrossing and the SCCA. The goal: to help them understand how vehicles work and how to control them, Lewis explains. “I was 8 when I first started competing in FJB. I continued on to FJA.”

Her parents’ plan worked well enough that, in 2008, Lewis was named the Dixie Region’s Driver of the Year. At the time, she was 12. When she reached 16, Lewis says she researched and found a car that would help her with the transition from karts to racecars.

“I bought a manual BMW 325i,” she says. “I competed in the local street-tire PAX Class in the BMW for about six months, until I got enough courage to move into the CP Mustang.”

Even with the BMW as a well-suited and well-balanced transition car, the Mustang, because of its horsepower and grip, was a handful, Lewis recalls. “The first time out, I think I hit, like, three cones with it,” she says.

The Mustang is, of course, the “Sledgehammer,” the family’s immaculate 1965 Mustang campaigned so successfully by Robert and Tracy Lewis. The car, she says, is simply “exhilarating” to drive. “Every time I go out, I come back with my hands shaking, even if I don’t go as fast as I want to. When it’s over, I can’t wait to go on my next run. I feel right in the Mustang.”

Lewis describes her 2013 introduction to the Solo National Championships as a “wow” experience. She had seen some big events with large courses, but “I had never seen a site that big, and I had never seen that many cars before.”

Even though she now has a trio of Solo Nationals under her belt, the first run of the event still makes her a bit nervous. “But I feel more comfortable now,” she says. “The first time I walked the course, I remember thinking, ‘This is the biggest course I’ve ever seen.’”

For a young person attending the Solo Nationals, there is often a delicate balance between competing, socializing, and getting schoolwork done, Lewis notes. Just as when you’re in a car, that part of the Solo Nationals requires a bit of discipline and focus, she says. “When I wasn’t running or working, I would be in the trailer doing my homework online,” she says about her first Solo Nationals experience, which coincided with her senior year in high school.

Last year, it was no different, Lewis adds. “The heat I wasn’t working or running, I would be doing homework.”

Today, in addition to working at Lewis Digital, the family business, and volunteering at a local physical-therapy clinic, Lewis attends two colleges, Florida Gateway College and Tallahassee Community College. A National Honor Society student in high school and now on the President’s List in college, Lewis plans to become a physical therapist. “I hope to work as a physical therapy assistant while working my way up to a physical therapist,” she explains.

Needless to say, she also has her eyes focused on a National Championship in CPL, too, although that is not the only thing that keeps her enthusiastic about autocrossing. “I think my favorite thing about racing is all of the people you meet while doing it,” Lewis says. “My family travels to out-of-town events; so I have friends all over the country. My Region is like my second family, but there is no one my age in my Region. So, when we travel to out-of-town events, I finally get to see people my age. Two of my best friends in racing, Rachel Saunders and Dana Gill, don’t live anywhere near me. Rachel and Dana both live in Kansas. I love going to out-of-town events and seeing them.”

Words by James HeineImages by Stephen Tillman & Stephanie Urso