Photos courtesy AB Motorsports

Thirteen days after being left dejected on the starting line in the final round of the sport’s most prestigious drag race, the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, three-time NHRA world champion Angelle Sampey got her retribution, winning her first race on four wheels at the Pep Boys NHRA Nationals on Sunday at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Most fittingly, the 54-year-old Sampey had won her first NHRA national event at Maple Grove 28 years earlier. She went on to win an additional 45 races in the Pro Stock Motorcycle division, becoming the winningest female driver/rider in NHRA history. But her career at a crossroads, cousin Antron Brown named her the first member of his AB Motorsports Accelerate driver development program in late 2023, putting her behind the wheel of a Hangsterfer’s Metalworking Lubricants-backed A/Fuel dragster fielded by Michalek Brothers Racing.

Sampey made her Top Alcohol Dragster debut last fall and ran three races to close the season, with sights set on an expanded schedule in 2024 — all with the goal of Top Fuel in mind. Through three Lucas Oil Series regional and four national events in 2024, she had yet to visit a final round, but fought her way to the finale at Indianapolis and had the pre-stage bulb lit opposite of Hunter Green when she was shut off with a leak and could only sit and watch her dream of a third Indy win end.

Sampey drove to victory in a tight final against Mike Coughlin at Reading, leaving the starting line just three thousandths of a second behind Coughlin and clocking a 5.304-second pass at 273.83 mph to a losing 5.307. The margin of victory was just .0005 seconds.

Sampey doubled-up with teammate, mentor, and cousin Antron Brown, who won Top Fuel Sunday at Reading.

“This is unbelievable, probably because in 1996 at this very racetrack is where I won my very first race,” said Angelle Sampey. “I was really hoping for this. We’ve been having so many fluke things keeping us from winning like in the U.S. Nationals when the oil line happened and we were shut off on the starting line. But God has greater plans, and it was to get me back at the racetrack where I won for the very first time, and to get my very first dragster win right here in Reading, Pennsylvania. I couldn’t be happier right now. ”

Sampey is currently sixth in the Top Alcohol Dragster national standings.