There’s Deja Vu, and then there’s what Steve Comella keeps doing at the Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge. However, it seems like Comella has his version of the movie Groundhog Day.
New sponsor, new enthusiasm… same old Comella domination from start to finish in the rebranded Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge during the 70th anniversary NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
Comella stopped Hemi veteran Bucky Hess in the final round, 8.396-to-8.411, to score his fourth consecutive Sox & Martin Hemi Challenge.
Though he dominated the event from start to finish like he has pretty much done in previous victories, Comella found himself questioning the logic of the feat he’d pulled off again.
“You could have me bet a dollar after Jimmy [Daniels] won four that anyone else could ever do that again,: Comella said. “I would have said, “I’ll keep my dollar. That’s not possible.”
“Yeah, it’s not possible. I don’t know how it happened again.”
In case Comella wondered, when one dominates qualifying from start to finish, giving himself a little over a .02 advantage on the No. 2 runner, this is how it happens.
“I suppose, but if you start doing the math out over four years, the length of time by itself of just nothing happening to you, and then you’re talking 18 passes, three qualifiers times four, you can’t screw up for 25 runs,” Comella explained. “That’s impossible.”
When Comella won his first back in 2021, such a thought of four in a row was foolish speak.
“I would’ve never taken any bet, no matter what odds you gave me that we were going to reel off four in a row,” Comella said. “We would’ve never done that. The one, we were good, it was deserved, but now you start saying, ‘Well, can you do two and then three and then four? No. It doesn’t matter how good you are. It’s just simple statistics. You can’t do that.”
“Jimmy did it. They earned the entire thing, but I would’ve said, “No, you can’t. It’s never going to be repeated, ever.”
Comella opened his journey to the finals with a bye run before stopping Eldon Baum, series icon Charlie Westcott, and Jim Pancake.
“You’re in this elevated state of consciousness all day, and you’re tuned into the car, and all I’m thinking about is the car; I’m talking to is the car. I mean,” Comella said. “I’m literally talking to the car in the staging lanes and in the shutdown, and then you jump out and you have people asking you questions. I can’t get back to being a normal person that fast.”
“I can’t repeat it because there’s a little bit of swearing, but I told her, ‘You know where we’re at. Do what you do,” Comella admitted. “The analogy is like a racehorse. They know when you’re at Belmont and when you’re at the Derby. They know when they run faster. It’s proven. You can see it in the times. The car knows. I don’t care what anybody says. It’s not alive. It doesn’t have a soul. I’m telling you, the car knows. I’ll tell anybody.”
And really, Comella didn’t have to tell anyone. They saw it firsthand.
