Thursday, August 7, 2014

Today in motorcycle history, August 7, 1970


    


   

   



  Three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle World Champion Angelle Monique Sampey is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.







  Angelle Sampey graduated from the Charity School of Nursing in New Orleans in 1995, and began working as an intensive care nurse in May of that year.  But, her burning passion for drag racing had continued to grow while she was in school and she knew it was something she needed to pursue.  Putting nursing on hold, Angelle attended Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School in December of 1995 and then in July of 1996, she made her NHRA debut as a Pro Stock Motorcycle racer, competing at Bandimere Speedway in Denver, Colorado. She would win her first race at Reading, Pennsylvania, in September of that year in just the fourth start of her career. Sampey continued to be successful, winning a number of races on her Suzuki throughout the late 1990's while competing for Star Racing. In 2000, she won the NHRA World Championship, becoming the first woman to win the title since Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney. She followed this up by winning the title again the next season. Reaching twenty-two career victories that year, she became the winningest female in drag racing history. In 2002, Sampey claimed the NHRA World Championship crown for the third consecutive year, only the second racer to accomplish this feat.





  On June 23, 2007 at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, Sampey set the National Pro Stock Motorcycle elapsed time record with a 6.871 second run.




  Angelle Sampey retired from competitive drag racing on March 11, 2010.  Her final stats were a staggering 364 round wins out of 506 total rounds of competition or a win nearly 72 percent of the time she twisted the wick down the quarter-mile.






  Today in motorcycle history proudly supports the National Association for Bikers with a Disabiity (NABD).  www.nabd.org.uk