RELATED STORY - 2022 NHRA U.S. NATIONALS EVENT NOTEBOOK

Joe Comella won last season’s Dodge Hemi Shootout, and although he should have been overjoyed, the perfectionist in him just didn’t let him go into overload elation. 

This year, ditto. 

From Thursday’s Q-2 session, Comella established himself as the driver to beat with an 8.421 elapsed at 158.80 miles per hour. And in Friday’s final round during the Dodge HEMI Shootout, he saved his best for last with an 8.407, 159.19 to beat a red-lighting Eldon Baum Jr.

“We wanted to come in this year and run the table and keep it smooth and relaxed and A-to-B every run,” Comella said. “Didn’t feel like last year’s [win] was a very representative year, even though it was really fast and we won.”

Comella has actually shown strong performance over the last three seasons. He was runner-up in the 2020 version of the event. 

Winning this event always measures up as his greatest drag racing achievement, regardless of how much better he feels he could have performed. 

“It was important for us to do this, this year, to repeat,” Comella said. “I tried to play it cool, like it was just okay, something I wanted to do, but really wanted to do it really bad.”

As much as he would like to commandeer momentum with his run of good fortunes, Comella understands with the volatility of the Super Stock/A H cars; momentum can be considered a mirage. 

“With these cars, there’s always an element of throwing dice against the wall. I was very comfortable all week with the car. I felt like we had a handle on it. I felt like that before and then it won’t go down the track. So I was cautiously optimistic all week.”

Comella stopped Tony DePillo in the first round before stopping Rich Locker in the quarter-finals. The semi-final race where he beat multi-time winner Jimmy Daniels was a crowning achievement. 

“I thoroughly enjoy racing him and the old man,” Comella said. “They are our friends, and there is nothing better than racing him. I absolutely love it, and I can’t say enough nice things about him. I think he’s a fantastic racer.”

First-time finalist Baum entered eliminations as the No. 8 qualifier and scored wins over Benny Kimberly, Doug Fazzolare, and Gary Wolkwitz.