Back in the day, Demaras Racing was a go-kart team with race-car aspirations. We’d spend every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the karting circuit practicing, qualifying and racing. Jeez, at our home track we even rented a private garage, which we decorated with racing posters, folding chairs and a rug.
One day, while walking through the paddock pushing the No. 412 kart toward pit lane, we spotted a large silver disc lying on the ground ahead. Was it a watch? A silver dollar?
Nope. It was The Gapper, a small spark-plug gapping tool made by Champion, AutoZone and plenty of other companies.
It’s used to measure and adjust the tiny space between the centre and ground electrodes of a spark plug. You slide the plug along the marked edge until you find the correct measurement, then gently bend the ground electrode until the gap matches the engine manufacturer’s specification. The hole near the top of The Gapper can also be used to open up the electrode gap.
It’s actually quite a lovely little design, and to us it looked suspiciously like gearhead jewellery.
So, with about 24 inches of ball chain, our randomly discovered Gapper became a necklace, hanging down like a set of military dog tags. Most people just see a silver pendant on a long chain. It’s not gold, it isn’t flashy, and there’s nothing particularly expensive about it.
But once every couple of years, a highly attentive person will stop in the middle of a conversation, stare at the necklace for a second and ask, “Is that a spark-plug gapper?” That’s when you know you’ve met a real one.
