Drag Strip tips and advice needed.

I pulled the heads today. What a pain. You have to remove the steering column to remove the headers to remove the bolts. Oh well. It looks like operator error. The gasket has a bend in it by cylinder. 1-3. Maybe I dinged it during the install. Hard to say at this point. Just curious, why is it that the coolant passages do not all line up. The holes are connected by a slot? Is it to restrict the amount of flow for an aluminum head? The 2 on the bottom are blocked off. 5CCFF706-3EED-4365-BB76-EDAA9889BF51.jpeg2640663F-97E3-4879-84CF-9C8FDCAB5758.jpegimage.jpg