Angelle Sampey left no doubt who had the fastest bike at the Denso Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals.

Sampey powered to a track record 6.700-second elapsed time at 200.95 mph to grab the No. 1 qualifier position at the second race of the NHRA’s Western Swing.

This is Sampey’s third No. 1 qualifier this season as she also was No. 1 in Charlotte, N.C., and Bristol, Tenn. This is the 56th of her decorated career.

“Yeah, definitely was surprised with the wind we have going,” Sampey said. “When I was sitting in the staging lanes before I even rolled into the burnout box, the wind was pushing me so hard my bike kept falling over. And so, I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is not going to be fun.’ I didn't even really want to go down the racetrack.’ “So, I just, I like to watch everybody in front of me. And when I see riders in front of me making good, clean, straight passes, it gives me the confidence that I'm going to be okay. 

“I told myself from the burnout to the starting line, I kept repeating, ‘Trust your team, trust your equipment. Everything's going to be fine.’ “That's when the middle part of what we do really kicks in when there's something taunting you, trying to make you believe that you're not going to be okay.” 
Sampey took a moment to describe her blistering pass.

“I popped the clutch, left pretty straight, but the wind did get me,” she said. “The bike started to drive to the right. I moved my butt completely off the seat, was hanging off the side of it the whole way down the track. And I thought, ‘Going straight, I'm safe. I'll be okay.’ But I did not think it was going to be a 6.70 at 200. So that's why I say, ‘I think I finally did it right.’ Because you could correct and hang off the motorcycle and still go fast as long as you're not leaning the bike or getting out of the windshield too bad. So, I decided to move my butt off the seat, and it actually worked this time. So, I can't wait to see the footage, and hopefully I did do exactly what I think I did.”

Sampey crushed her own track record of 6.730-seconds in 2016.

“It's really cool,” Sampey said about her run. “One of the things that I struggle with these days is if I'm making the right decision to still be here. I've been out here for 26 years now. I took six years off and got married. After I had my little girl I swore I'd never come back to drag racing because family life at home was just so awesome. But I came back, and I struggled. This weekend, my daughter is at a softball tournament, where they have the championship game tomorrow, and I'm not there to watch it. And so, I wonder, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ But I am doing it to show her and my two daughters, what they can do with their life, if they really try hard and surround themselves with the right people. And so, there's a lot of times that I need a reminder that I'm here for the right reason, and when something like this happens when we get this awesome run, which in conditions like we had in Gainesville, what would I have run there? That's why I wonder.

“So it's like I'm still showing that I am successful, and my team is definitely successful and I'm still showing my daughters exactly what I set out to show them. And I still feel like I have a reason to be out here or that I deserve to be out here. When you're struggling, you feel like I don't... I feel like I don't deserve the ride. I guess sometimes I think everyone out here is so good that maybe I'm not good enough. So today really helps me to remind myself that I'm here for the right reasons, I'm still able to be successful, and I do deserve to be here.”

Sampey is the winningest woman in NHRA history with 46 national event wins.

“I don't know, yeah, if how many wins is going to be enough,” she said. “I ask myself that all the time like, ‘When am I going to stop doing this? When is it going to be enough?’ And I don't think it'll ever be enough. I don't think I'll ever feel like I'm good enough. And I know I try to tell myself that's the wrong way to think because I'm trying to teach my daughters how to think. And here I am feeling like having these negative thoughts about myself, but I think that's what keeps me going. I am the type of person that if it's playing golf or tennis or checkers at home with my husband, if I can't win and I can't be better, I have no purpose. And so, I'm still trying to be better. I'm still trying to be good enough. I'm still trying to win, and that gives me a purpose for being  .”

“So, when I feel like it's enough, all of that's going to go away because getting a pro motorcycle from point A to point B is really, really tough to do it the way you need to do it to win these days. And if I don't have that drive and determination, I'm not going to win anymore. And so, I'm glad that I feel the way I do.”

Despite her electric run on Saturday, Sampey isn’t taking anything for granted on Sunday.

“For me personally, I have a couple of things to change,” Sampey said. “I was not perfect on that run. I didn't get it perfectly straight down the track. I didn't shift perfectly. There's improvement for me, whether or not there's any improvement left in the motorcycle, I haven't looked at the computer with Andrew (Hines) yet. I have a feeling he's probably going to leave it alone unless there's something way off that he sees he can improve. But with that run, I don't think he's going to be adjusting too much. The only thing we'll adjust for tomorrow that I know for sure would be if the wind is to change, if we have a really strong head wind, he might change the gearing. If the temperature or the altitude, if anything with the density altitude were to change, but I don't see that happening. I see we'll probably, what I foresee is we'll probably leave the bike alone and hopefully I do my job again Sunday.”