"New" #32 coupe

Well we took delivery on the  coupe, got it home, pulled the body off and got it over to Terry at Manhattan Collision Center for paint.  He did a spectacular gloss black and orange paint job.  He also did a royal blue distressed pinstripe accent that made the whole thing really POP.  We got the body home and very carefully re-installed it, placed the numbers and graphics, the result is excellent.  Now that the numbers are on it is officially the #32 coupe.  Our plan was to be able to go get the car home, get it painted, get the graphics on and get it to the track for a test session before the 7-12-14 rainout make up race.  Mission accomplished!!!!  

We called Mr. Joe got the track reserved for Fri. night the 11th, booked a motel in Mobile, planning to test Fri. and race Sat the 12th.  We were praying for no rain as the skies looked ripe.  We got to SSR about 6 pm unloaded got on the track and as you might suspect it starts to rain--a heavy drizzle at first then a light shower, then it stops, just enough to remind you who is really in charge.  We had some company at the track, Joseph and Brian McArdle were there with their cars Conner with his #14 Legend and #14 Pro Challenge and a couple of go karts, just enough activity to keep things interesting.

The track dried quickly and we only lost about 20 min or so,  Connelly got back out and said the car felt really good.   We wanted to try 3 or 4 different tire combinations which we managed to do, the fastest set was found out to be the one we weren't even trying to test, but because I laid out the wrong tires we learned something--sometimes being lucky ain't all bad.  Connelly had to feel his way with the coupe as they handle quite a bit differently than the sedan.  Most people describe the coupe as being a little "twitchy" when compared to the sedan.  Connelly had gotten so comfortable in the sedan that he knew what it was going to do before it did it.  He progressed quickly through the learning curve and was soon turning times in the low 13.00's.  We put that "fast" set of tires on and Connelly said he was going to go out and "bust it".  We had the electronic timing system set up and after 7 laps he shuts it down and comes off the track, which is unusual as you usually have to shoot him to get him off the track.  I walked back down to the trailer and he says come see something.  He scrolls through the times of those 7 laps and after his get up to speed laps he had a 13.02, 13.00, 13.00
12.97, and a 13.01, and that was with no tweeking or fine tuning the setup.  Connelly said there was nothing else I could learn from running more  laps, we are ready for tomorrow night.  We slept well that night looking forward to Sat. night's race.