Angelle Sampey

Angelle Sampey was a twenty-six-year-old intensive care nurse when she decided she wanted to race motorcycles instead in 1996.  Four years later, she took the National Hot Rod Association Championship as a Pro Stock Bike Racer.  Then, the following year, just to make sure they got the point, she took the Championship crown again by winning a record-setting twenty-two races.

At 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, Sampey's forty-one wins puts her just four behind the number one Pro Stock Bike Racer ever, so she naturally resisted using her gender to grab sponsors. Speaking about how she and other women racers feel about being seen as women first and competitors second, Sampey told one reporter: "In my mind and in my heart, I'm just a racer. When the helmet goes on, you can't see the faces. We want you to give us attention because we're winners."

Sampey retired in 2010 (at the age of forty) because she wants to have a baby, but her career stats, they say, will almost unquestionably put her in the Hall of Fame one day. Right where in-your-face women belong.