[olddog]

Somewhere I got the impression you have mostly driven fuel injection cars and little experience with a carb. If I'm wrong, sorry to be insulting. I'm suspecting you may think all you have to do is turn the key.

If the plugs are dry, I doubt it is flooded, although your smelling fuel puzzles me.

When cold you should press it to the floor once, and let off peddle before cranking. That does two things. It sets the choke and high speed idle cam. It also squirts some extra fuel into the dry manifold. If it doesn't start repeat. If you find it always takes two tries then pump it to the floor twice before cranking.

You can also slowly pump the accelerator while cranking.

If it does get flooded, then you hold it to the floor while cranking and do not let up on the peddle until it starts.

If it has no choke (race carbs typically do not) then you definitely need to pump quite a bit of fuel to start it.

If you already know all this, then ignore me.