​Sampey scored 41 wins and three championships in Pro Stock Motorcycle competition before leaving the sport after the 2008 season. Virtually everyone connected to professional drag racing, including Sampey, assumed her career was over when the search for sponsorship and possible rides in Top Fuel or Funny Car entries in 2009 proved fruitless. She officially retired in 2010.

And that’s why the Englishtown trophy, and its prominent place in Ava’s playroom under a sign reading “Dreams only work if you do,” shines with importance.

Sampey was 38 when she decided to retire. She had devoted much of her adult life to drag racing. Despite being married (and divorced) twice, she had passed on the opportunity to have children.

Sampey was 39 when Seth Drago, a fellow Louisianan, proposed to her. Suddenly, with racing behind her, she had the chance to fulfill another dream — becoming a mother.

“I told Seth I would marry him under one condition — I wanted to get pregnant right away,” Sampey told USA TODAY Sports. “There was this huge hole in my heart. For 10 years, I had this recurring dream about a baby girl, my baby girl. She was about 8 months old, and no one could take her away from me. She wouldn’t let me go.

“I got pregnant the weekend after the honeymoon. And my dream came true. We had Ava. She is exactly the child I dreamed about. She looks exactly like the girl in the dream.”

All was fine in the Sampey-Drago bayou home near New Orleans. The couple owns a saltwater aquarium business near their house, and their daughter and a herd of pets — a goat, pig, rabbit, dog, cat, turtle, eight ducks and four chickens — filled the remainder of the hours in each day.

“I was so mad that I didn’t have a child sooner,” Sampey said. “I said that I’d never go back to drag racing. I hated what it did. I didn’t even want to watch it. I had wasted 20 years of my life putting off having a family.”

Then George Bryce, owner of the team that had built motorcycles for many of Sampey’s NHRA wins, called in 2014 with an offer for her to ride again. Initially, she said, she rejected the idea. But Ava, the dream girl, arrived in her thinking.

“Ava knew nothing about what I had done,” she said. “All the trophies and stuff meant nothing to her. I wanted to show her what you can do with your life. I decided to go back and try it and win for her, to show her what I had done and what could be done.”

It wasn’t a simple thing. First, there was testing. Sampey hadn’t been on a drag bike in six years. The two-wheel beasts — grounded rocketships — hit 190-plus mph in six seconds — not a ride for the tentative.

“We went testing in Valdosta, Georgia,” she said. “My first time on the bike, tears were dripping down my face because I was so scared. I hadn’t sat on one in so long, and now I’m about to do close to 200 miles per hour in less than six seconds.

“But as soon as the pre-stage beam went on, it was like I went into autopilot. I went back 10 years. ... I had every kind of emotion from fear to exhilaration — in six seconds.”

So the rides and races returned, but not the wins. Sampey raced three times in the fall of 2014 without success, then a freak ankle injury sidelined her until the next season.

When Sampey returned in 2015, she struggled. Then significant changes were made to her bikes. And the return to being competitive and winning finally happened in June this year.

Sampey, admittedly a very emotional person, reacted with overwhelming joy at the end of her final-round run in Englishtown. She climbed off the bike and started jumping up and down, as if on a pogo stick. Then, of course, she cried. Presented with the trophy, she looked at the video camera to emphasize to Ava, at home in Louisiana, that “Mommy won.”

“I was an emotional wreck,” Sampey said. “I was an embarrassing, emotional, crazy person. But I couldn’t believe I had won another race.”

Back at home in Louisiana, Seth Drago heard word of the victory through his earphones as he was working on an outdoor pond building project near Thibodaux.

“I was very excited, over the moon about it,” he said. “I was a little bummed I wasn’t there, but it was touching for her to get emotional and dedicate it to Ava. It had my throat hurting.”

Sampey was 45 when she won, boosting her victory total to 42 and underlining her record as one of the most successful women in American motorsports. She has twice as many victories as Pro Stock driver Erica Enders, the No. 2 female winner in NHRA. And she is five victories from Andrew Hines, with 47 wins the most successful rider in Pro Stock Motorcycle history.

Those numbers pale in comparison, however, with the number of trophies in Ava’s room — one.

Sampey said she and her husband tried to have more children, but she had two miscarriages after Ava’s birth. She has decided to stay in racing and celebrate the rest of the journey with her husband and only child.

Early word has gone out to Santa Claus that Ava will find a small motorcycle under the Christmas tree this year.