The Coupes first race of the year

I finally got the coupe up to the race track with big expectations, and ended up with a let down really. The one thing I neglected to do this whole time was change the spark plugs and it came back to bite me on the first time run. But first there's the issue of getting the car through tech inspection and this did not go well, but my fault not theirs. So the first thing they tell me is I have to completely fill out the tech card and I'm thinking why I've already filled out one each race I've been to this year, all be it with different cars, and the coupe is the same as it was last year so I'm thinking waste of time and holding me up here. I fill it out and a different tech comes over and starts going over the car, finds nothing wrong and sends me over to the tech shack to get my yearly tech sticker, only to be denied it there. It turns out the seat belts were expired and needed to be replaced which I was able to do there at the track and finally get the tech sticker.

Well I'm driving the race car down and back from tech and it's not running real great, it has a miss in it and I'm not sure where to look for it. So I get back to the pits and change the seat belts out, all good there now, and start messing with the carburetor and it's all ok and it's time to make the first time run so I go down and give it a shot. The launch of the car was really soft, it didn't want to rpm and that miss was there in spades so it ran really slow. I had bought new spark plugs and intended to put them in before I got to the track but just didn't get it done so I decided to do that now and see if that helped, boy did it. It turns out the gap on the #4 spark plug was completely closed up so it was only running on 7 cylinders, but all the other plugs were fine. I put in the new set and fired it up and it sounded like it's old self again and ran like it too.

Overall the car's running slower than I would have expected since I took almost 100 pds off the front of the car. Last year with the stock K frame in it weighed 2645 with me in it and this year with the new tubular K frame in it weighs 2585 with me in it. So I was expecting to run a little quicker this year but the car ran about the same times it did last year for the air conditions. I also red lit in the first round, still having problems leaving on a good light.

So today is All Ford day and I'll be up there trying to win some rounds and get the car running better. Last year at this event I made it to the semi-finals so I'm hoping to repeat that success this year if not better it.