Skankaway Anti-Toe-Fungal 500 Day One: BMW E34 Leads, Model T GT Close Behind

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

It was a long, hot, crazy, metal-crunching day at Infineon Raceway today, with cars bashing into walls and each other, shooting rods through hoods, catching on fire, and generally reducing the world’s stock of sub-$500 beaters. Still, some of the 171 Skankaway Anti-Toe-Fungal 500 24 Hours of LeMons teams managed to keep running, and when the session ended we had some familiar faces in the top five.

Leading the race by the thinnest whisker-width margin is the If It’s Not Punk It’s Junk GP BMW 525i. This team has looked pretty good in recent races, but this is the first time they’ve ever managed to finish a Saturday session on top.

I dropped by If It’s Not Punk It’s Junk HQ tonight and found that they were listening to Deep Purple, of all things, as they wrenched on their BMW. So much for their image! They promised they’d switch to the Dead Kennedys as soon as their “party mix” ended.

Pretty much glued right to the E34’s bumper is the Model T GT. This team has the advantage of being stacked with a bunch of ringers (some of the top Spec Miata drivers on the West Coast), but the massive disadvantage of the fragile T5 transmission. We’ve seen the T GT take an intimidating lead in race after race, only to barf T5 parts all over the track with hours to go. It’s got V8 power and killer driving talent… but you need a transmission to finish a race. Actually, the T GT would be leading the race right now if not for the 3 BS-inspection penalty laps we gave it as part of the “handicap the perennial contenders” program we inaugurated yesterday.

Speaking of teams being held back by penalty laps, Eyesore Racing also got hit with the 3-lap handicap, and that puts them four laps back of the leader instead of just one. That doesn’t mean a whole lot at this point, however; Eyesore is known for making a big move in the late hours of a LeMons race.

If I were an If It’s Not Punk It’s Junk driver, however, I’d be most worried about this car. POSRacing, aka the F’ed-Up Express aka Spin-N-Out Burgers E30, has been running its usual invisible, trouble-free race. This team rarely makes mistakes, and their car manages to avoid the usual LeMons E30 electrical-system and wheel-bearing woes. POSRacing is seven laps back of the E34, instead of the four-lap margin they’d be facing if they hadn’t been zapped with the 3-lap BS handicap.

Here’s something you don’t see very often at a LeMons race: a BMW 2002 in the top five. Team Hurling Moss has been around for years, and they’ve done quite well— though not this well— in the past. They’re a serious long shot for the overall win, with lap times 5-8 seconds off the other leaders’ best times, but you just never know what will happen at a LeMons race.

Meanwhile, the LeMons Supreme Court will be doing our best to keep miscreant drivers from putting each other into the many walls at Sears Point. Check in tomorrow to see how it all sorts out.

Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • CJinSD CJinSD on Oct 23, 2011

    How is the Corvair doing against the Porsche 928s?

  • Andy D Andy D on Oct 23, 2011

    seems to me I saw a lotta old BMWs in those pictures. My pair of 528es manages to keep us in transport fairly OK

  • ToolGuy "Honey, someone is trying to cross the moat again"
  • Rochester "better than Vinfast" is a pretty low bar.
  • TheMrFreeze That new Ferrari looks nice but other than that, nothing.And VW having to put an air-cooled Beetle in its display to try and make the ID.Buzz look cool makes this classic VW owner sad 😢
  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
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