NHRA Pro Stock Bike racer Angelle Sampey, the winningest female professional racer in the history of motorsports, has retired. She left the sport after a failed attempt to team up with Shirley Muldowney and start a new Top Fuel operation. In recent weeks, Muldowney has been on a media tear, first ripping the National Guard for, according to Muldowney anyway, courting the pair and making promises of funding that were later yanked away, and blasting the NHRA in an ESPN interview, saying that the sanctioning body has essentially destroyed drag racing. This seems like a decent time to exit stage left.
Sampey’s career is hall of fame worthy in our opinion. She currently holds the longest streak without missing a qualifying cut at 182 races. She won 41 NHRA national events, only 5 less than the all time leader Dave Schultz, and she scored 41 #1 qualifying spots during her 11 year career.
One of the humorous parts of this whole thing is that the press release announcing her retirement talks about the “next challenge” that she will undertake. That challenge? Getting maried (for the third time), and opening up (and we are NOT making this up) Coral Fever, a store that will sell “fish, coral, and aquariums.” That ought to nicely replace the thrill of riding a motorcycle at 190 mph. “Which aisle are the little diving men in, Angelle?”
Here’s the full press release:
NEW ORLEANS, March 11, 2010 – Angelle Sampey, who is the winningest female in professional motorsports history, is hanging up her helmet and leathers as she announces her retirement as a professional drag racer. Sampey, who totaled 41 victories during a 13-year NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle career, said she’s planning to pursue other career opportunities while looking to start a family with her fiancé, Seth Drago. “I’m ready for a new challenge, including opening Coral Fever, a store specializing in fish, coral and aquariums,” said the 39-year-old.
“I made the ultimate sacrifice to postpone starting a family when I began racing. Now, I’m going to make the ultimate sacrifice to stop racing to get married (in June) and then try and start a family.”
The Louisiana native made her NHRA debut in 1996 at Bandimere Speedway outside of Denver and immediately raised eyebrows by advancing to the semifinals. She recorded her first win in her first final round later that season at Reading, Pa. in the fourth event of her career. “I will take away so many great memories from racing,” she said. “I’m certainly going to miss being around my fellow racers and, of course, the fans. I really enjoyed meeting the fans at every race. They were always there for me through the good times and the bad times.”
To be sure, Sampey did not experience many bad times since ’96. In fact, she captured three world championships and banked 18 wins between 2000 and 2002.
“Obviously, that was an extraordinarily exciting time period,” she offered. “I never imagined I could have that kind of success. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of talented people including George Bryce (her crew chief during each championship season).” It was in 2001 when Sampey became the winningest female in NHRA history, moving past Shirley Muldowney on the list. She went on to pocket seven wins that season which remains the most wins ever recorded in a single season by a female competitor in NHRA history.
“To be honest, it was tough to comprehend what I had done after I surpassed Shirley’s win total (18),” she said. “After all, Shirley is one of the sport’s legends. I look up to her.” Among Sampey’s final stats will be a staggering 364 round wins out of 506 total rounds of competition or a win roughly 72 percent of the time she blasted down the quarter-mile. “Again, I want to emphasize that I had a bunch of people help me along the way,” she related. “I could spend a day or more thanking each and every one. I’ll never forget any of them.
Perhaps, the one mark Sampey wishes she could have broken before exiting the sport was the most wins in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class – 45 – as established by the late Dave Schultz. “That’s probably true,” she said. “I clearly could’ve hung around just to try and break that record. But, as I stated, it’s time for a change
