Exactly one week prior to winning her first national event in more than nine years, Angelle Sampey attended an NHRA-hosted dinner with her daughter and on each table was a piece of chocolate shaped like a Wally, the coveted trophy given to all of the winners on the NHRA tour.

After finishing her meal, Sampey snuck a few of the chocolates and brought them home to her five-year-old daughter Ava and let her enjoy the delicious treats. Who knew that moment would turn into something so much bigger.

“The weekend before in Atlanta, we visited the Coca-Cola dinner and on each table were some chocolate Wallys,” Sampey said. “So I brought a few home to Ava and she was so excited because, of course, it was chocolate. But after she finished eating it, she asked if at the next race I could bring her home a real Wally, not a chocolate one.”

One week later, Sampey fulfilled that promise.

After several years away from the sport to raise a family, Sampey, the winningest female in NHRA history, returned to the winner’s circle for the first time since 2007 with a victory over Jerry Savoie at the NHRA Summernationals at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park.

“Because of that chocolate, that is why when I was on camera, I said, ‘mommy got the real one this time,’” Sampey said. “I think I was more excited and more emotional for that win than I was for my championship wins. It was amazing.”

Sampey returned to racing in 2014 with the plan to immediately get back to the winner’s circle and give her daughter a real Wally, not one of the 41 that had been collecting dust in her home.

But with each subsequent race weekend, and each failed attempt, Sampey began to lose hope.

“One of the reasons I decided to come back was Ava,” Sampey said. “Here she was growing up hearing about what I used to do, but never actually seeing it herself. I thought, this is an opportunity to be her role model, show her what things are possible.

“I came back figuring I am going to win a couple of races and show my daughter. So when we weren’t winning, that started weighing on me. I started thinking, maybe I have made a mistake. Have I come back just to show everyone that I can’t do it?”

So when that win light finally came on for the fourth time in a weekend in front of that crowd in Englishtown, it was more that just another win.

“When that win light came on in the final round, I don’t know how I didn’t crash the motorcycle,” Sampey said. “I was literally jumping up and down on it and screaming. I just couldn’t contain my emotions. The first thing I thought of was her and that I finally did it. I was not an embarrassment anymore. When the emotions flooded in, I was blubbering like a baby.”

So with a week between the Englishtown victory and this weekend’s Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, what has come of Wally No. 42?

“She has got it in her playroom on a little bookshelf,” Sampey said. “It is so cute. When her friends come over, she says, ‘come see my Wally.’ It is hers. I have 41 of them prior on a stairway, so she has seen these trophies since the day she was born. But they mean nothing.

“This one is her Wally.”