Top Fuel dragsters don’t just burn nitro. They burn through stacks of cold, hard cash and that’s the reality one drag racing legend seeking to find her a place amongst the top of the food chain in drag racing has learned.
Angelle Sampey has a Top Fuel dragster waiting for her, a team owner who wants her behind the wheel and the confidence to believe she belongs there. What the three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion doesn’t have is the sponsorship money to make it happen.
Until somebody writes the check, the dream of racing alongside longtime friend and former teammate Antron Brown remains on hold.
“That seems to be the million-dollar question and I wish I had an answer for it, but the only thing that’s really going on is a hope and a dream right now,” Sampey said. “So I know Antron wants a second Top Fuel car really bad. I would get to be the driver if that happens anytime soon.”
Brown wants to expand his operation to two Top Fuel dragsters, with Sampey driving the second entry. The equipment is available, and Sampey believes needs only a few additional runs to complete her Top Fuel license.
“But right now it’s just funding, just trying to find the funding,” Sampey said. “We’re working it hard, trying to get the message out there. We’re going to up our social media a bit with it and try to let everybody know that that’s the goal, if they don’t know already. But unfortunately, it’s just funding that’s holding us back.”
Sampey isn’t abandoning the idea, but she’s learned not to let another opportunity determine whether she enjoys the one she already has. And if Top Fuel happens, she’d particularly enjoy lining up against Brown.
The two have been racing each other since 1997, when Sampey helped Brown learn to ride a Pro Stock Motorcycle after he attended Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School. They became competitors, then teammates under the U.S. Army sponsorship before Brown moved to Top Fuel.
Their rivalry wasn’t particularly kind to Brown in final rounds.
“I think he has a vendetta against me because we raced in the final round in Pro Stock Bikes 11 times and I beat him nine of those 11,” Sampey said. “And so I think that might be the real reason he wants me in a Top Fuel car, so he can even the score.”
Nearly three decades after they first competed, Sampey would welcome the opportunity to renew that rivalry in 11,000-horsepower dragsters.
“I know that driving a Top Fuel car has a lot more to do with the car and the crew than it does with the driver, but you still got to drive it, you still got to cut a good light, you still got to make it go straight,” Sampey said. “So I would love, absolutely love to line up next to Antron Brown and see what happens.”
Before that can happen, Sampey must finish her licensing requirements, and Brown’s championship schedule has made arranging another test difficult. She’s already driven his Top Fuel dragster, but her runs ended around the 330-foot mark.
That leaves one experience she hasn’t checked off her list: feeling the car’s full acceleration after the clutch reaches its next stage of engagement.
“I’ve only driven Antron’s car to the 330 mark,” Sampey said. “So that was just before that clutch goes one to one and you feel that six and a half Gs. So I really do want to do that. Whether or not I get to race, I would like to make a few full passes in a Top Fuel car.”
Her first experience wasn’t nearly as frightening as she’d anticipated. Sampey worried the acceleration would overwhelm her ability to process what was happening, only to discover the car felt remarkably smooth.
“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to mentally keep up with the speed of the car,” Sampey said. “But then when I hit the accelerator and the car launched a starting line, it felt better than my A-Fuel dragster because it was just smooth and I don’t even know how to explain it.”
A second attempt ended when the car’s safety system shut down the engine. The testing opportunity ended, and she hasn’t been back in a Top Fuel dragster since.
In the meantime, Sampey has developed an attachment to the very car she initially wasn’t particularly interested in driving. Her Top Alcohol Dragster is a former Brown Top Fuel chassis, complete with a canopy and cockpit arrangement that makes the transition between the two cars familiar.
The A-Fuel experience has done more than prepare her for Top Fuel. It’s helped her rediscover something she nearly lost during her championship-winning motorcycle career.
“I absolutely have fallen in love with it,” Sampey said. “And I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t want to drive Top Fuel because I absolutely do. I’m just trying to keep my heart from being broken if that never happens. And I’m loving this so much that if it doesn’t happen, I’m okay.”
Sampey admits there was a time when the pressure to perform perfectly made racing miserable. Every mistake became something she punished herself over, until she reached a point where she wanted to walk away.
Brown’s encouragement and her experience with the Michalek Brothers A-Fuel team changed that. Surrounded by people who made racing enjoyable again, Sampey found herself looking forward to climbing into a race car without carrying the same emotional burden.
The Top Fuel dream hasn’t disappeared, and neither has her desire to race Brown again. But Sampey isn’t willing to sacrifice the happiness she’s found while waiting for a sponsor to make it possible.
“I’m having fun no matter what,” Sampey said. “I mean, I’ve reached a point in my career that I’ve learned that every second of every day, I just need to enjoy it no matter what. No matter what I’m in, no matter where I’m at, no matter who I’m with, just enjoy it.”
