Burnout Tutorial for the newbs..Street tires & Slicks/DR's

GPRauto wrote:This was taken from another site and felt it would benefit alot of the inexperianced people heading to the track this season.....



Street Tires

Very simple.... Drive around the waterbox so you don't get water on your front or rear tires. If you do go through the waterbox, then all you're going to do is spray it all up in your wheelwells, and drip it ALLLLL the way down the track, making it slippery (and dangerous) for you and the nex 20 ppl to go after you.

Spin the tires enough to get the gravel/dust/debris from the pits and staging lanes off them. There's ABSOLUTELY no point it smoking them. Street tires are designed to withstand heat, and not get hot. The only thing you're going to accomplish by doing this is to take several thousand miles of usage off in a matter of seconds, and also you're going to harden your tires quicker.

Slicks/Drag Radials

Unless you're running skinnies in the front, you should still go AROUND the waterbox. Do this for the same reasons as street tires.. You don't want to get water in the tread of your front tires and eventually sling it down the track, laying a line of water to counteract your slicks all the way down the track.

Back the rear tires into the waterbox and spin them over once. There's no reason to do your burnout IN the waterbox, so just get them wet and roll out about 3 feet. THEN you can light them up. If you have a line lock, mash the brakes, flip the switch, let off the brakes and let 'em rip.

If you don't have a line lock, then you can dump the clutch (if you have one) and get the tires spinning. Then step on the brake with your left foot just enough to stop the car from rolling. Remember that the harder you step on the brake, the harder the REAR brakes (as well as the front) will try to stop the tires from spinning, so try to stay on the thin line where the front brakes are barely holding the car still.

Most true slicks are sticky once they start smoking, but the hotter, the better! If it's the VERY first time on new slicks, then you will want to spin them for a good 10-15 seconds to burn off any silicon that's still on the outer surfaces.

Drag Radials vary quite a bit on how they react to burnouts. BFG's seem to get hot to a point and won't get any stickier. Nittos on the other hand seem to take longer to get hot, and they can get REALLY sticky once they are hot.

Some notes to remember while your doing your burnout:

Sometimes the car will start to shift to one side. Basic driving skills teach us to turn in the direction of the slide, but while doing a burnout, this doesn't work and will only shift the car further to the side. Instead, steer the other direction, and the steering rack will actually pull the car back around and straight. Remember that this only works if the front wheels are NOT moving. Once they are moving, you want to keep the front wheels pointed straight down the track at all times.

Some people like to shift into higher gears while doing a burnout. This can result in a faster spinning tire and heating it up faster. It's also alot harder on the clutch to do this. Not saying that you shouldn't do it, but just be aware that it can and has cause MANY clutches to spin from getting too hot