Don’t tell Angelle Sampey to retire.
That’s the wrong choice of words, according to her. Whenever she decides to permanently step away from the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series, it will be on her terms.
Although that’s the case, Sampey has heard those words spoken before.
The three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle champion has faced an ultimatum twice in her career, with both instances forcing her to consider retirement from racing. The first was in 2002, when Sampey was released from her longtime team, Star Racing, and was left without a ride.
The second was a similar situation 20 years later, when she was dropped by Vance & Hines at the end of last season. But each time, Sampey has found a way back to drag racing — though it hasn’t necessarily been through her own doing.
“This is the second time Antron (Brown) has saved my career,” Sampey said Thursday.
In 2002, then-Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Brown was Sampey’s first phone call when she had reached the conclusion that she had nowhere else to go.
“I was going to announce my retirement, so I called Antron and told him that I was going to be leaving the sport,” Sampey recalled. “He wouldn’t accept that.”
Brown’s immediate solution was to team up with Sampey, though they only had enough money to make it through half a season of competition.
They might’ve started out the 2002 season apprehensive of what would happen next, but both riders still had a bright future ahead. The two joined the Don Schumacher Racing organization late in the year and brought their NHRA campaigns to fruition.
The second time Sampey phoned Brown about retiring was a matter of months ago.
“I called him this time and said I was trying to decide what I wanted to do. I didn’t know if I wanted to just sit out and call it quits, or if I wanted to own my own motorcycle,” Sampey said.
However, her proposition of owning a Pro Stock Motorcycle team wasn’t something Brown was too interested in hearing about, according to Sampey.
“He didn’t want to talk about bikes, he wanted to talk about cars,” Sampey said.
Brown’s intention was to see Sampey climb into a Top Fuel dragster and make her four-wheel debut — as he did in 2008. And it had been his intention for the last eight years.
The 53-year-old’s initial hesitations — both regarding safety concerns and simply thinking she wouldn’t like piloting a dragster — prevented her from taking him up on his offer to test a A/Fuel dragster for the better part of a decade.
Until now.
“She sent me a text message and I can tell you right now, when she sent me that, I called her. I was triple O on the tree on the reaction time, calling her back,” Brown said.
Sampey admitted that, while her text was mainly prompted by encouragement from her husband, her original intent was to call Brown’s bluff.
“I told him I was going to do it, because I thought when I said, ‘I’ll do it,’ he’d leave me alone,” Sampey said. “I sent the text, ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ and my phone rang two seconds later.”
On Wednesday, Aug. 23, Sampey completed the A/Fuel dragster licensing process at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Two days prior, she made her first four runs in a dragster at Minnesota’s Brainerd Int’l Raceway.
“The only similarity that I experienced over the last several days coming from a Pro Stock bike to a car, was the fact that I was on a drag strip,” Sampey said with a chuckle. “That was it. Everything else was completely different.”
After the first few runs at Brainerd on Monday, Sampey was adamant that driving a dragster wasn’t for her. But her response was something Brown was ready to handle.
“After my first full run in a Top Fuel car, I remember it like it was yesterday,” Brown said. “It hauled the mail — the crew guys were coming down and were like, ‘How about that?’ I was sitting in the car, and my eyes were just big and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is for me.’
“It’s not being scared, because if you’re scared you wouldn’t sit in the car in the first place and try. It’s a nervousness of the unknown. So what Angelle went through, I knew it would pass, because I’ve been through it.”
The third time was the charm and once Sampey hit the track for round three, the increase in comfortability she felt was more than enough to settle her nerves about moving into the nitro-burning ranks.
“I’m completely, 100 percent a rookie,” Sampey said. “I am also absolutely, 100 percent positive that I want to go through with this now.”
Sampey is the first athlete to join Brown’s new AB Motorsports Accelerate Program, which is aimed at helping racers advance their NHRA careers.