- Three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Sampey is switching to dragsters, starting with as many as three events this season.
- Tony Stewart, a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, is in his second year of running a NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster.
- Sampey remembers her first meeting with Stewart, and leaving less than impressed. The two are now friends.
When three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion Angelle Sampey makes her debut switching from two wheels to four in the NHRA/Lucas Oil Top Alcohol dragster class later this season, there’s a chance one of her first opponents is a guy you may have heard of.
Namely, NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart. The same Tony Stewart who Sampey admits she once thought was “a butthead.”
Stewart not only owns a NHRA Top Fuel (his wife, Leah Pruett, is one of the class’s top stars) and Funny Car (three-time champ Matt Hagan) operation, he’s now in his second season of driving in the Top Alcohol Dragster (TA/D) ranks.
Stewart is having an outstanding sophomore campaign, currently a close second in the TA/D standings, just nine points behind series leader Shawn Cowie. Stewart is a legitimate threat to become the first driver in racing history to ever win championships in IndyCar, NASCAR (three times) and in NHRA.
Sampey knows facing Stewart in one of the season’s final three races she’s slated to compete in—Texas (Oct. 12-15), Las Vegas (Oct. 26-29) and the 2023 finale at Pomona, Calif. (Nov. 9-12)—is a real good possibility.
The Louisiana native has become good friends with Stewart’s wife. The spent time together last week during a test session at Brainerd, Minn., with Pruett offering tips and suggestions on how to drive a dragster.
Pruett wasn’t the only one offering Sampey advice. Stewart did the same, as did three-time Top Fuel champ Antron Brown. Brown is leading Sampey’s transition from bikes to dragsters through AB Motorsports’ new Accelerate Program to help develop drivers.
“I have several pictures and video from Monday’s testing where Tony’s leaning over in the car talking to me,” Sampey said. “He was actually helping me a lot. He was telling me what to expect, what it was gonna feel like. After he watched me do my first couple of runs (she did a total of eight runs), he came back and gave me some pointers on how he does it.
“We’ve become friends at the race track. Tony actually spent some time in the staging lanes with me a few years back when I was racing bikes, watching. He seems to be really interested in every form of motorsport or every type of race vehicle there is.
“And Leah is just real nice about it. She’s so secure in her relationship that she doesn’t care if Tony’s hanging out with me. I even made sure, that I was like to her, ‘Are you okay with him (talking to me)?’ I don’t want anyone thinking I’m trying to move in on Tony.’
“She says, ‘Oh girl, I don’t care about that. We know who we’re going home with.’ So we’ve become pretty good friends over the last couple years. And it meant a lot to me that he was interested enough to stay up there with me at the starting line to watch me run.”
Not only did Pruett and Stewart give Sampey advice during the Brainerd test, three-time Top Fuel champ, former PSM rider and the boss of Sampey’s TA/D effort, Antron Brown, was also a steadying presence there.
“That picture of having Antron leaning in on one side of the car, talking to me, and Tony on the other side of the car, leaning in, talking to me, it’s just an amazing picture to me,” Sampey said. “I have these two guys that I care about.
“One of them is one of my best friends in the world (Brown), and Tony is just somebody I’ve always looked up to, and I’m like, ‘How lucky am I just to even be sitting in that car?’ There’s a lot of people that would kill to be in that spot.”
The first time Sampey met Stewart about 20 years ago at a NASCAR race, she wasn’t exactly impressed – and recalled that meeting when she spoke to Stewart recently.
“I said to him, ‘Do you remember us meeting 20-something years ago at a NASCAR race that you (Stewart) were competing in?’” Sampey said. “They brought him over and introduced us to each other and he didn’t speak to me. He just kind of reached out and shook my hand but didn’t say anything.
“And I thought to myself, ‘Wow, he’s kind of a butthead.’ I didn’t know if he was mean or if he thought he was the shit or what? I just didn’t like him.
“I’ve learned since I’ve been in the sport you don’t judge somebody like that. But I judged him off of that one meeting and thought he wasn’t nice. Then I found out later that he’s just kind of a quiet, shy person. And so that’s what he was doing, he was just being quiet and shy. I mentioned that to him (at Brainerd last week). I told him ‘I didn’t think you were a nice person.’
“And he was like, ‘Oh my gosh, if anything, I was in awe of meeting you. I was thinking this is a badass motorcycle racer.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, well, this is frickin’ Tony Stewart.’ And then all these years later, I finally meet him at the racetrack because he’s there with Leah, and he’s so freakin’ nice, just such a nice guy. And all these years later, I finally found out that he is a genuine, nice human being and we’ve become friends.’”
But there remains one key question: will they remain friends once they face each other on the drag strip?
“Tony said to me (at Brainerd), ‘Just think of when we line up against each other. I’m gonna get to race against this badass Pro Stock Motorcycle racer,’” Sampey recalls Stewart saying. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, and I’m going to get to race against Tony Stewart.”
Sampey doesn’t want to get too far ahead of herself, but admits she does have a dream in mind.
“I hope I win because I’m going to tell everybody, ‘Yeah, I raced Tony Stewart and I whipped his ass.’”
Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on X (formerly Twitter) @JerryBonkowski
Read the full article here