Angelle Sampey Makes Cut in NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster Debut, Beats Tony Stewart
Three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Sampey, drag racing’s most successful woman with 46 victories, earned the 16th and final starting position Friday for Saturday’s eliminations in her Top Alcohol Dragster debut at the Texas FallNationals.
In her first Top Alcohol Dragster eliminations, Sampey proved to be a natural, defeating first top qualifier Mike Coughlin, then Tony Stewart on Saturday in an event eventually won by Julie Nataas.
When three-time bike champion Sampey announced that she was going to trade two wheels for four, she only half-joked that she wanted to “kick Tony Stewart’s ass” as she joined him in the increasingly popular class. She got her chance and took advantage of it Saturday.
Against both Coughlin and Stewart, Sampey took the lead early in the run and advanced to the next round. But Kirk Wolf stopped her streak, scoring a wire-to-wire victory over Sampey in the semifinal Sunday.
“My main goal was to become comfortable and learn as much as I can, and I already am 100% comfortable, and I'm learning still,” Sampey said. “In the car, I took it one step at a time. I mean literally from them starting the car to releasing the brake and then pushing me through one step at a time.”
"A lot of times, I start worrying about what I got to do three steps from now. The whole beauty is there's no expectation. That's the best part. I'm enjoying it. I can't wait to do it again."
That’s quite a change from her original opinion.
Sampey drives for Antron Brown’s AB Motorsports Accelerate program. And when he suggested she try racing on four wheels, she initially resisted: “I told him, ‘I have no desire whatsoever to drive a car. I love motorcycles.’ And he said, what is there left for you to do in the bike class? He said, ‘Why don't you consider driving a car?’ And I was like, ‘I just don't want to.’ He said, ‘Why don't you want to?’ And I said, ‘Because I'm afraid of it.’ He said, ‘What are you afraid of?’ I'm like, ‘Crashing, dying, I don't know. I'm afraid of it.’ He's like, ‘Well, let me put it to you this way: When's the last time you've seen somebody fall off of an A/Fuel dragster?’
“So I was like, ‘OK. I'll try it, whatever. He kept pushing and pushing and pushing until finally I said, ‘OK, I'll try it.’ And then the first test session, I was petrified, literally knees shaking in the car. I mean, I was petrified,” Sampey said. “It took the first two runs to finally start calming the shakes. And the third run, we were sitting there waiting to go, and he's bending over, talking to me in the car, saying, ‘You feeling OK? You ready? You excited?’ And I literally wanted to punch him in his face and say, ‘You need to get away from me right now, because I can't even believe I'm doing this.’ But it just took that first day. We did four runs that day, and after the fourth run, I was like, ‘Oh my God - I love this.”
She said she “got in that car for testing and then for qualifying especially, I have never been so excited to get on the racetrack ever in my whole career. I have been a nervous wreck for 26 years and it's not until the bike starts that I can start to calm down and get myself out of that. But usually I wake up in the morning and I am nervous and my stomach's turning and I'm like, because all I can think about is how bad I want to win and don't screw this up.
“And today,” Sampey said, “I woke up two hours earlier than I wanted to, and I was so excited to get to the racetrack and couldn't wait to get in the car. And when I got in the car today, there were no nerves. It was all happy, all fun. I am so happy to be here. I haven't felt that in a long time.”