Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Angelle Sampey said she never gambles when she visits Las Vegas, “because my luck sucks in Las Vegas!”

The evidence was there – a sutured and heavily bandaged lower left leg and the crutches that were propping her upright.

Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Angelle Sampey said she never gambles when she visits Las Vegas, “because my luck sucks in Las Vegas!”

The evidence was there – a sutured and heavily bandaged lower left leg and the crutches that were propping her upright.

An accident early Friday in the Star Racing pit – “Five minutes after I got out of the car!” she wailed – injured tendons in Sampey’s foot/ankle area. And despite making two qualifying attempts Friday with 20 stitches in her foot, the NHRA emergency medical team declared her unfit to continue racing.

She said she begged for a chance to try to improve her tentative No. 21 position to no avail. Her withdrawal from competition marked her career-first failure to qualify. It halted her streak at 186 races, which was sixth best on the NHRA all-time list for all pro classes.

Doctors have recommended surgery. She said she’ll fly home to the New Orleans area Sunday night and will undergo an MRI and see an orthopedic specialist.

“I’m hoping the [diagnosis and prognosis] from the hospital was wrong about it being torn. I’m hoping it’s just partially torn or not torn and will heal itself. I don’t want to have surgery,” Sampey said. “I just know surgery’s going to mean rehab.”

Sampey was hurt as she tried to unload the wheeled starter box from the team hauler Friday. She positioned herself in front of the box rather than behind it, and it rolled into her leg.

“It cut me wide open,” she said. “But I’m very lucky. It just scraped the Achilles tendon. I didn’t cut it too bad. I cut a tendon on the side, and they think that one’s torn.”

She said she didn’t realize at first that she was seriously injured.

“It hit me when it hurt. And I was thinking, ‘Oooh, that hurt. That hurt. Walk it off. Walk it off.’ I hadn’t even looked down. I thought it was just a knock. I was waiting for that pain to stop. I took about four or five steps, and every step I took I almost fell,” Sampey said. “Then I looked down, and the blood was just gushing. Thankfully [NHRA tech official] Bob Blackwell was in the pit and he radioed the medical people and they got here in no time.”

She received the stitches then and was deemed capable of racing. So she made two passes, the last of which she aborted.

The three-time series champion showed the heart of a winner, and team owner George Bryce called her “a real trooper” for the way she wanted to race through her pain.  

Sampey said, “I ran two runs with it yesterday, with it all stitched up. But I couldn’t get away with it today. I cried. I begged. I said, ‘Please. I have a three-year-old at home. I will not do something I think I can’t do. And I know I can ride this motorcycle.’

She pled her case vigorously.

“I told the doctor while he was stitching me, ‘I have to race. You understand? I have to race today.’ He said, ‘I know – that’s what they all say.’ I said, “No, I have to race today. The reason we are here is to try to get a sponsor. We have potential sponsors who are coming here to watch us race. I have to race.’ He said, ‘You guys are all the same.’

“It was painful to stage it, because I was having to push the bike. But making the run down the track I was fine,” she said. “But what happened was second round, it started to go toward the center line, to the cones, and I was having to lean [over]. The way I drive, because I’m so little, is I stand on the peg. And I couldn’t stand on the peg, so I had to shut it off for safety reasons.”

Sampey said she looked at the doctor as she turned off the track in that last pass Friday that left her 21st in the 23-rider order. And she saw him shaking his head. He sent Sampey to the hospital, and the assessment there was that the lateral tendon is torn or partially torn.

“I begged and begged, because I have never DNQd. I said, ‘Just let me make one more run. Let me get a good qualifying run in. And then I don’t have to race. I just need to qualify.’ But they wouldn’t let me,” she said.

Because Sampey attempted to qualify, she was charged with the DNQ. That was a sore spot for her, and she discovered that a rider swap might have averted the blemish on her clean career.

“I don’t know if George would do it  -- it’s me that has this big problem with a DNQ. That’s the big issue,” she said before Saturday’s third overall session.” George has the license, but he doesn’t have the leathers.” She said Bryce didn’t choose to pursue that option.

“I can’t say it’s not performance[-related],” Sampey said of the DNQ .“I had two shots and I blew it.”

Already she’s planning her second comeback after this short-lived and suddenly terminated one. And already she’s trying not to derail it with head games.

“I know I’ll be able to race next year. It’ll screw up how early we can go testing and all that other stuff,” Sampey said. “I’m so mad at myself. I can’t get it out of my head . . . and George keeps telling me I’ve got to get it out of my head . . . ‘Why did I do that? Why did I roll that starting cart behind me? I knew better than that.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to stop thinking about that and start thinking, ‘What are we going to do now?’ ”

Bryce was pragmatic.

“This is part of our journey. I think Angelle sees it as a big speed bump, but I see it as just part of our journey. We’re going to use it to make us more committed, more determined.”

Sampey flashed a sense of humor about Star Racing’s battered bunch. She nodded at longtime Star Racing crew member Ken Johnson, who has a prosthetic leg after a non-racing motorcycle accident. “We have a one-legged crew member, a one-legged rider,” she said. And nodding at Bryce, she said, “And he just had hernia surgery two weeks ago.”

Quipped Bryce, “And Chaz [Sampey teammate Kennedy] and Chuck [Kennedy’s dad] are [goofballs]. All of us put together make one whole person.”

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