282 MPH In 5.18 Seconds: Angelle Sampey

Welcome And Meet Angelle

Mike Marrs 0:06

Welcome to In Wheel Time. Coming up in this segment of the short program, we're going to be talking with Angel Sampei, professional NHRA drag racer. We're going to have some of this week's news stories, and we're going to see where the roads can take us this week. I'm Michael Mars, and let's get to our first guest. Howdy, ma'am. How are you? So glad you could join us.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Thank you. I'm sorry. I know I was a little bit difficult to get a hold of the last couple of weeks. We had one session scheduled, and my little girl had her wisdom teeth pulled, and she was in so much pain. I ended up having to take her into the dentist the day that we were supposed to do this. So, but I'm finally here. So thank you for having me.

Mike Marrs 0:48

Well, that's one of the things we wanted to talk to you about because we know you've been super busy. Uh in your co-career, you've been super busy. So let's kind of go back and help our audience understand where you're coming from. So you started out basically uh on dirt bikes, if I remember correctly.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yep. Six years old. I started racing um motorcycles. I had a little RM50 Suzuki. My brother was a motocross racer, my dad did it for fun. Uh, he was focusing more of his attention on my brother becoming a motorcycle champion. And in the background is when I was riding, and I'm the one who stuck with the passion of racing motorcycles. So, yeah, so from going from the six years old on a dirt bike, did that for several years, kept riding. I think I was riding a street bike by the time I was 12 years old. Um, and then took, I had a street bike that I took out to State Capitol Dragway in Louisiana, started drag racing it there as a hobby, and then went to the Cajun Nationals out at State Capitol Driveway. And that's where I went. I saw my first NHRA drag race, and I was introduced to Pro Stock Motorcycle. And when I saw that, that was the end of everything else. Like the ballet that my dad wished I would have done, you know, go I was going to

Dirt Bikes To Pro Stock Dream

SPEAKER_01 2:05

college to be a registered nurse, which I did finish. I'm also a registered nurse, but every desire, passion, dream I thought I had was put in the background because I was gonna race a pro-stock motorcycle and I was gonna make that happen at all costs, and fortunately I did.

Mike Marrs 2:19

So you actually started that in 1996, but so so kind of explain what a pro stock motorcycle really is, because it's to me, it's just a monster bike.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

It uh it's um a really low. A lot of people think I'm taller than I am because when they would see us on TV standing next to the bikes, we look really tall, but the bikes are so low to the ground you have to like squat down and get on it. But it's um it's it's kind of similar, if I had to explain it, you know, but NASCAR, you know, someone might be driving a Ford, but it really doesn't look exactly like the Ford that's on the car, or the Pro Stock cars and Pro Stock car racing and NHRA, you know, they're modeled after a streetcar, but they don't really look anything like it. The engines, of course, nothing like it. The only thing that's stock on the motorcycle um used to be the heads, which we don't even, they don't even use those uh heads anymore. It's all aftermarket stuff now. So pretty much everything on a pro-stock motorcycle is all custom-made aftermarket parts, but um, it is just a very powerful, over 400 horsepower engine. Uh, there's Suzukis and Bules, and used to be Harley Davidson's and other bikes out there. I think it's just Suzuki's and Bules now, but 400 horsepower on this really low, really long motorcycle with a wheelie bar out the back because you don't want to flip over when you pop the cut the clutch. They go from zero to sixty in less than a second, zero to a hundred and right at a second. Uh, they will cover the quarter mile in six seconds at over 200 miles per hour. And of course, you have to shift five or six gears, depending on what kind of transmission. I think everybody's got a six speed these days. Uh, so there's a lot going on. There's no seat belts, no roll bars, no, you know, no Hans Necks devices, anything holding you on or keeping you still. It's just you, the motorcycle, and some a pretty thin set of leathers between you and the road if you go down. But it's exciting, but I do not do that anymore. I have graduated from the two wheels, and I am now running an A-Fuel dragster. So my uh car is owned by Antron Brown, A B Motorsports. I'm sponsored by Hankstaffers, and I've been doing that for three years now, and that is my stepping stone to top fuel because our ultimate goal is for Antron to have a two-car top fuel team, and I would be the second driver if the Lord is willing and the sponsorship money comes along. We gotta have the sponsorship in there, yeah. Yeah, we got pretty much everything in place, ready to go. Um, I've done a couple of test passes on Antron's car, need to do some more to finish my license, but we're just raring and ready to go. We just still need to find that funding.

Mike Marrs 4:59

So before we go on to the next uh more recent accomplishments, was it a big transition to go from holding onto the handlebars, basically two wheels, fat wheels, but two wheels? Yeah. Now you've got four wheels and you've got a little steering wheel and you're sitting there kind of looking down a porch. I mean, I I've seen the probikes run whenever they were in Houston, and I can't imagine doing that, but it seems like you'd have a little more field of vision, possibly.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And oh, that's the biggest difference. You know, everybody will ask me what was it like to go from the bike to the car, and it's easier for me to tell you the only thing that was similar, and that's the fact that I'm on a drag strip. Everything else is completely different. Uh, and that was the biggest difference for me was being able to move and look around and talk to my crew chief I needed to. You know, my arms are free. You could step off the bike if you need to get off and walk around in the staging lanes and in the car. Once you are suited up in your five-layer fire suit, which feels like you're completely

Pro Stock Motorcycle 400 Horsepower

SPEAKER_01 6:00

wrapped in a very thick oven mitt. Um, and then you get in the car and you're strapped down. There's a five-point harness, there's wrist restraints, there's um a chin restraint. Well, I have a neckstin around my neck that keeps my head from going forward, the chin strap keeps my head from going backwards. My wrists are tied down to this harness that's over my legs and over my shoulders, and everything is super tight, and you cannot move, you cannot move around or look on side of you or anything. And then now I'm also driving a closed canopy race car. So once that canopy goes down, there's no communicating with anybody other than who's whoever can hear me on the radio, because fortunately I do have a radio now. So that was a little tough to get used to because I've had some issues on the starting line before where I was able to call over my crew chief and you know speak to him.

Mike Marrs 6:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

And you just can't do that. That's not happening in a car. So it that was a little different for me, but it's something that I got used to pretty quick. And the the restraints holding me down actually became a very comforting thing once I went down the racetrack and realized how fast this thing goes and how rough it can be. So yeah, you definitely want to have those restraints.

Mike Marrs 7:09

So, what kind of speeds are you hitting now?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Um, my top speed, I think we ran a 282, 282 miles per hour, and my best ET, I believe, is a 518 in the Afield car.

Mike Marrs 7:21

So zero to two eighty-two in five eight five point eight one eight seconds.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yep. Yeah. Um, pretty exciting. Less than a second to the thousand, I mean to the hundred-foot mark, and I don't know how many G's it's pulling. I'm think somewhere between three and four G's off the starting line. And uh, we have reverse Gs as well. When you get to the finish line and you pull the chutes and they deploy and it slows you down. That's probably the hardest hit that you feel uh is those reverse G's when it throws you forward. And there was one time I didn't have my belts weren't tight enough. It was in the very beginning when I didn't understand how tight I needed to be in there, and when I pushed those shoots and it threw me forward, it actually bruised my chest around my um your collarbone's different here, yeah. Yeah, because I wasn't in there tight enough. So, but I know better now.

Mike Marrs 8:11

Lessons learned. But I guess that's part of the the like you were talking about, a little comforting to know you're all strapped in. Oh, yeah. Because if something goes wrong, it's gonna go wrong real fast.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's it's you definitely have to think quickly. Um the hardest part for me to get used to in the beginning was when it would break the tires loose, either into tire shake or tire spin. And that's something that you have to recognize in a split second, um, because you pedal the car two different ways. And I'm I'm not very good at it still. I I I've have I've had lots of opportunity to practice it, but most of the time I just we just don't pedal the car because we've had some situations where it hurt the engine and it just wasn't worth it. You know, if you have to let off the gasp for tire shake or tire spin, you're probably not gonna win. So we choose to just save the engine and and not risk anything than to you know, really have a pedal fast. Now, if there's a car inside of me that's in just as much trouble with tire spin as me, I will go ahead and try, but I haven't done it enough to really get good at it. But um, so the thing that happens is when the tire breaks loose, if it goes into tire shake, it's a very violent shake that the tires starts shaking sideways and what it feels like, and everybody thinks I'm joking, but this is exactly what I would imagine it feels like. So if you had your helmet on and you strapped your head into a paint shaker at Lowe's or Home Depot, that's exactly what tire shake feels like. So it vibrates your head so violently that you can't see, you go blind, and your reaction is to immediately let off the throttle because it's you just can't stay on it. And then to recover from tire shake, you would have to let it settle down. No, I'm sorry, that's tire

From Two Wheels To A/Fuel

SPEAKER_01 9:55

spin. You get off the throttle and get right back on it. You want to break that shaking going on, or you can even pull the brake. I'm nowhere near being able to do any of that. And then tire spin, it's much more calm. The cup, the car just kind of lifts up and feels like you're on a slick of oil.

Mike Marrs 10:12

Yeah, you can see the tires grow.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Yeah, the tires lift up, it starts smoking, and it's almost like you're on oil and it's just moving around. And that you have to let off the throttle, let the tires calm down, and then slowly get back on the gas. And to be able to decide which one am I supposed to do, am I supposed to get off and on as fast as I can, or do I get off and then slowly back on? It's so hard to figure out which one you need to do. And like I said, I'm just not there. So hopefully in the future.

Mike Marrs 10:41

You used to usually you have a second or two to think about all that. I mean, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Well, maybe if you want to win, if you want to get to the finish line first and the other person's going through the same thing, you got to be a lot quicker. But I know there's uh there's some device that's on the cars now that help with tire with tire spin, but um, that's not something that I really want to have on mind. So we're gonna do it old school and and figure out how to how to how to control the throttle myself.

Mike Marrs 11:09

Well, in my mind, if you can get on a bike and go to 200 plus as fast as you're doing, I don't see where you're gonna have a problem. Maybe a little more practice, but I think you're gonna get it. So let's let's move up into some more recent things. For one thing, um, you are a three-time pro stock bike champion, right? That's right. So, so you, Shirley Moldani, Erica Enders, you three ladies are the elite, I don't know any other way to describe it, of lady women in drag racing because you're the only ones that have accomplished what you've accomplished. Yeah. And then I think you've also got like 46 national event wins?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

47 now. 47. Yeah, let me know. 46 on the pro stock bike and one in the alcohol dragster. Not nearly enough. I threw away a whole bunch of other wins. I I should I should be in the 60s for sure. I mean, I I wasted so many wins just by my mistakes on the starting line or shifting or red lighting or whatever, you know, I just wasted away so many wins. Also, championships. I to there's two other times for sure that I was so close that I could have had two more championships, I'd be five right now. But that's why they call it racing. You know, we if it was all written down on paper, we'd have a lot more to brag about. But when you have to get up there and do it and you're a human being, not a machine, then things kick in and you start thinking and doing the wrong stuff. And so yeah, I've caused myself to not be as successful as I would have hoped to be. But I'm pretty proud of the 47 wins and the three world championships. Um, but I could not have done that without the awesome people that have always been around me. I've I've always been on the best teams, I've had the best crew chiefs, the best crew guys, and uh the best sponsors, the best products. You know, I I've been surrounded by nothing but the best. So it's been a team effort all these years.

Mike Marrs 13:08

And and recently there was some more additional recognition that came your way because of this. Uh you were introduced into inducted. I can't speak today. You were listed and announced as one of the top 75 drivers for the last 75 years.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah, that's a pretty amazing accomplishment. I was excited to see that. Um, that's something I never imagined. And then there's another one, I don't know if you're gonna mention it, that has is taken place that I never would have imagined was gonna happen. But I have the book, the 75-year anniversary book with all the top 75 drivers, and I was

Tire Shake And Tire Spin

SPEAKER_01 13:45

just looking at it the other day, actually. And to go back and see these legends that are in this book, and my picture and my name is in there, it's pretty phenomenal. So I'm I'm very proud of that. And once again, something I could have never done if it weren't for the people that I've raced with.

Mike Marrs 14:00

And it is a team, it goes back to the whole concept of a team. So I'm absolutely cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Now, isn't there another one that I I saw another uh I will be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame for the 27th, the the 2022 class.

Mike Marrs 14:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

So I got the call a couple few months ago, and in March of next year of 27, I'll be going to Daytona for that ceremony and getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. So that when when I got the call for that, I thought someone was it was a fake, you know. I thought someone was trying to tell you.

Mike Marrs 14:38

Somebody was pranking you.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I thought it was a prank. I didn't know. I was like, okay, I was kind of scared to be rude to the person because I didn't believe that this was real, but I just got caught off guard. So I kind of just listened to everything he said. He's like, okay, I'm gonna email you all the information. I'm like, okay, thanks, you know, whatever. And then uh hung up the phone and I got the email, and then I made a couple phone calls and I found out that this was real, and I had to send him an email to apologize. And look, if I didn't sound excited, I kind of didn't believe that this was real. And now that I know it was real, I was just, you know, overtaken with emotion. And I'm very, very excited about that.

Mike Marrs 15:17

Well, it's very well deserved. You've got the record, you've got the stats, you got the numbers to back it up. You're you're a great person to talk to. And I know some of your sponsors, I believe uh Mission Foods is are you still involved with them?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

So I'm the I'm the brand ambassador for Mission Foods. I was sponsored by them with the ProSot Motorcycle. Uh, and then when I lost my ride there, um, they hired me to represent them at the drag races for the NHRA mission, too fast, too tasty challenge race. So I'm the one that stands at the end of the track and you know awards the winner with the trophy and the medal, and we do some pictures and interviews, and it's fun. But we've um grown it a little bit. So now I get to hang out with the fans a lot more. I do some stuff at the mission booth. We have a every weekend we do a giveaway or a drawing where we pick um fans to come to the starting line with me. We call it the mission seat upgrade or the starting line experience. And so I'll do a drawing and we'll take them to the starting line, and they get to stand literally right next to the cars in the burnout box and watch them do the burnouts and watch them leave. So that that's been really exciting, and I've been I'm really enjoying doing that with them. And then Hangstiphers is my main sponsor. They're a metalworking lubricant, so they're the ones that puts the coolants and uh the products with that go along with machining, which is such a big part of racing. I mean, there's so many things that are yeah, that are made in the CNC machines, and so Hangstafers is just a huge part of everything we do at the racetrack. Um, they also do medical supplies and and airplane stuff and things like that. We're I'm actually leaving on Monday to go to the IMTS show in Chicago for Hangstafers. So I'll be hanging out there signing autographs and meeting new people. Um, and then we have other people like FVP, uh, which is an aftermarket parts um company, factory motor FMP and FVP are the two names that they go by, but they've been a big part of what we do too. They provide us with a lot of stuff for our race car, from cleaning supplies to parts, batteries, you name it. So I I have have wonderful people around me, my impact racing family that keeps me safe with my helmet and fire suit. But um, you know, like I said, I just want to reiterate if it weren't for the team and the sponsors and the crew guys and everybody, I've come to realize over the years how important everyone else is. And I'm just a very, very small part of what it takes to get all this done. I'm the lucky one who gets to get to rot drive the car and have all the excitement while everybody else puts all the hard work in.

Mike Marrs 17:46

Well, I don't know that I would go quite that far. Obviously, you've worked really hard to get to where you're at, and I think all these accolades are well deserved. And I I thank you

Championships, Wins, And Lessons

Mike Marrs 17:55

very much for joining us today and sharing some of this information with us.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

No problem.

Mike Marrs 18:00

All righty. Uh, I'm gonna step away just one second, and we're gonna uh have a quick break here for about 30 seconds, and then we will be back with more features, more automotive news coming up on In Wheel Time. Cars, trucks, SUVs, motorsports, road trips, and the people who make the automotive world interesting. In wheel time is changing and we're expanding. We're bringing you more automotive stories, more interviews, more destinations, and more of what you may have missed. From Texas to the automotive world beyond, in wheel time is your place for automotive talk without the politics or the nonsense. Join us for the next generation of In Wheel Time Cars, trucks, and the people who love them. I want to thank Angela again, one more time, for joining us and for letting me keep her a few extra minutes than what we'd agreed to. She was very gracious and I appreciate it. She's got a lot of great stories, and I hope to get a chance to talk to her again and get some more of that information. Uh, so I think we're gonna do a little shuffling. We're gonna do some of the news stories now. Some of the we get our stuff from automotive news. And according to them, this is there's several of them tied together here. They're saying that the U.S. new vehicle inventories fell slightly to begin September to 2.91 million vehicles. Now, that's a lot of cars sitting out on the lots to get sold, but it is 30,000 fewer than it was a month ago. Unfortunately, it's 40,000 more than it was year over year. So it's kind of uh kind of up and down thing, but they are trying to expand their stocks of the quick selling hybrids. The hybrids are selling, so the latest inventory represents about a 73-day supply at current selling rates, which is about five days less than it was in early August. But that's also down almost three weeks over last year, same time period. Now, the hybrids remain the fastest turning powertrain for the fifth consecutive month. They're really hot. A lot of people are shifting from the EVs. We'll get to that, getting ahead of myself. Uh, for the fifth consecutive month, and had the lowest day supply at 64 days. But automakers and dealers added more hybrids to inventory over the last month than any other powertrain reports say. Now, the day's supply of electric vehicles, pure electric vehicles, fell by 20% to 72 days to begin September. But the supply of diesel powered vehicles rose to 114 days as the nation deals with record diesel fuel prices. I don't drive a diesel, I have driven a diesel. There's times I think I would like to have a diesel, but I sure wouldn't want to be paying those prices, and that might be enough to keep me from getting it because I don't have to have it. The number of vehicles on active inventory price below 35,000, which is a critical point here, fell sharply during August. So it's roughly 30% of the active inventory was being marketed at a price between $35,000 and $50,000. So the last time I bought a brand new car off the dealer's lot, 2015, granted, but it was like $28,000 is what I drove it out with. And it was a mid-size SUV, it wasn't top of the line, mid-trim level, but things have definitely changed. The mid-size SUV and crossover supplies are the most abundant among the segments, with over 600,000 vehicles on hand. And so you can kind of see where the overall market trend is going. But here's a couple of things that I wanted to bring up to kind of go along with that. So Cadillac. It's reported that Cadillac pivots from an all-eV energy as dealers brace for a bumpy transition. Now, they're redesigning and reviving several of their gasoline powered vehicles uh as it backs off its EV target. But the dealers are gonna have to wait

Hall Of Fame And Sponsor Support

Mike Marrs 21:50

to get them. Now they risk losing some of the customers to arrival brands, of course, because you got some of the key segments. Somebody needs a car, they want the Cadillac. Well, I can't wait. So you're going to lose a little bit of that. So Cadillacs US sales fell 22% in the first half of the year. Now, this has triple the overall luxury segment decline. So it kind of tells you where Cadillac sits. Uh dealers are already grappling with plummeting sales this year. They're bracing for a rocky transition as the brand backtracks, backpedals from a plan to go fully electric by 2030 after starting to phase out gasoline models. Now, this is part of that whole new Green Deal, the big green deal, everything that was going on. This is some of the repercussions that we are into at this point, to where a lot of the people that got forced into making some decisions I don't think they really wanted to make, but you do what you got to do. Cadillac has had great success with their electric vehicles, but they still have clientele that will expect to have a gas-powered vehicle well into the 2030s. Now finding a way to get there, though, is tough because the way Cadillac's lineup is set up currently, they don't have a vehicle in production to fill that space. Finding a way to get there is going to be tough because of the way Cadillac's lineup is set up. There's going to be a space in the gas-powered sedans and some of the crossovers where they don't have a vehicle. After killing off the XT4, the XT6 crossovers last year and the CT4 sedan this summer, General Motors luxury brand is now working to backfill those holes. They're redesigning the XT5, the XT6, and the CT5. But it's going to take some time into 2027 and maybe even 2028 before they actually get out there. So dealers are glad the brand's not going to force them to sell only electric, but it's kind of causing a problem because of the delay of getting back to the gasoline. It's the mid-size crossover market that's really where they're going to find their challenges because that is the hottest market that's out there. So it's going to be kind of an awkward period for Cadillac because they're going to miss out. Uh, it appears they're going to miss out on some of the luxury market during this little transition while they're trying to backtrack and catch up. Now, the other thing I wanted to bring up that was going along the same line. So a few months ago, it was reported that

Hybrids And EVs Market Whiplash

Mike Marrs 24:10

Toyota was going to stay the course with EVs and hybrids. They were going to slow down the updates on their other models. Now, this included particularly the 2027 Toyota Highlander, which was redesigned as an electric vehicle only. It's going on sale in the first quarter of 2027. Now, this is again reported a couple of months ago. Now, Toyota's extended its traditional product development cycle, slowing the pace of the former clockwork-like upgrades on some vehicles in North America amid unprecedented trade and competitive pressures. In other words, they're kind of slowing down their changes to the other models that are going on, and they're still looking at the EV. And the other story that's where this goes is to where now, more recently, the same Toyota Highlander EV is being delayed because of the, which means basically the huge nameplate's just not going to be there temporarily. It was reported that the Toyota Highlander, again, it was reported that the Toyota Highlander was to go on sale this fall, but its production has been delayed by undisclosed issues. So it's getting pushed back until the first quarter of 2027. So it's going to be a 2028 model. So the high the Highlander EV launch won't be until after undisclosed improvements are fixed. Things are needed, kind of fix it. The dealers may be faced with months with little or no Highlander inventory, no matter what the powertrain they're looking for. The current generation Highlander goes out of production in December. The EV arrives as a 2028 model. So Toyota is still having issues trying to make the transition, trying to figure out what are they going to do? They're going to be in this gasoline, they're going to be EVs, they're going to be hybrids. That's where I think the people that are betting on the hybrids are really coming into it. I'm where I'm at, long story, we've talked about it before. I've never had a bad EV. EVs are inconvenient for me because of where I'm at, because of the infrastructure. I don't have the charging system here at home because uh they come and they go. I don't have one all the time. And really, that's one of the biggest reasons I think that I appreciate the hybrid concept, the way it works for me and the way I drive, the way my family drives. We could drive the hybrid. Uh, most of the time it would be on the electric. We don't go more than 25, 30 miles at a time, generally, but we'll do take and when we decide we need to go further than that, then we'd have the gasoline powered route. I still haven't calculated all the added how much it more it costs, how long it takes to recover those savings, that the way they make it work. I do believe there's a place for them. Just not where I'm at in Southeast Texas. I think there's a lot of room for everything out there. Again, particularly the EVs in their world, they're just fine. So we're gonna wrap up this half hour of our program. And if you're listening to us on a podcast, then by all means, this is this episode. There's another episode coming that will be the second half of our program. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this short message. For more than 14 years, In Wheel Time has been talking about the cars, the trucks, the people, and the stories that make the automotive world interesting. Now we're taking In Wheel Time to the next level. New vehicles, automotive news, car reviews, motorsports, industry leaders, and interesting people. We're gonna take you beyond the driveway and the dealerships with stories from the people who build, race, restore, and actually live the automotive lifestyle. And we're hitting the road with driving destinations worth discovering. First across Texas and eventually wherever the road can take us. Plus, we're gonna

Closing And Where To Follow

Mike Marrs 28:05

have some automotive history, features, interviews, and stories that you may have missed. It's still in wheel time, but there's a but there's a lot more of it to discover. Watch us, listen to us, follow us. It's in wheel time cars, trucks, and the people who love them.