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Burnouts unecessary?

7K views 33 replies 20 participants last post by  Eleanor's Nemesis 
#1 ·
Are Burnouts necessary in most cases? i'm thinking no.


Your thoughts?
 
#2 ·
It depends on the car. Back when my car only ran mid 12's on drag radials I would just spin them enough to clean them off. As I started going faster a burnout was definately needed.
 
#3 ·
I rarely ever do one on the way to the grocery store.
 
#6 ·
i'm saying for MOST cars at the strip short of the pro or alcohol classes (although i'm thinking they may not need it either).

i'm thinking it would be better to get a wider tire than burn the one you got in order to make it sticker---it's too marginal. A larger tire would be more consistent and put less stress on the drivetrain if no burnout required.
 
#21 ·
Kilgore, wasn't it? Seargent Kilgore if memory serves correct. Great movie. But it was in the morning I think.
 
#12 ·
If it's a tire that gets sticky, not a street radial, yes it helps. If the car they are on is slow and won't spin the tires anyway no point obviously.
That said even in the really fast drag classes guys typically seem to over do it, all they need to be is up to temp, not too hot not cold either.
 
#14 ·
A big mistake with a burnout is not all tires are created equal. Drag radials and slicks are made to heat up or to temper and stay soft. Street tires will glaze and temper and get hard and will ruin the tires quickly. Not that I am a tire guy but I found this out from a tire guy. Doing a burnout from a 40 mph roll is rather enlightening though, can you say adrenalin rush.
 
#17 ·
Yes burn outs are necessary. I race both of my cars in pure stock and you must run the original tire and rim size, F70-15 with an 8 inch rim and F70-14 on a 7 inch rim with polyglas tires! The burn out is critical, too hot and they get greasy and too cold and they spin. The real reason for treaded tires to stay out of the water is the water that comes off of the inner fender well. No water. Btw, I run 40lbs of air in the rear and 45 In the front, it is all about the contact patch
 
#23 ·
"SpellCheck" is also 'unnecessary' - but handy at times ;)
 
#25 ·
You drive around the water on street tires because the track doesn't want your big treaded tires dragging water to the starting line where it will make the slick tire cars spin. Street tires almost always get more sticky with a burnout though. Even back in my street racing days,we would put down water and burn the tire and when we backed up,you would hear the tires sticking to the road and making a suction sound. Whenever I light'em up from a stop light and then continue cruising down the road,I hear the rocks getting thrown up against the wheelwells,so it is clear that even on my regular old Pep Boys tires they get sticky with heat.
 
#30 ·
i don't know if communist would be accurate. More like frugal. Also, the Mickey Thompson tire company apparently agrees with me:
http://www.mickeythompsontires.com/strip.php?item=ETDrag

My view is that if brackets, why burn up your tires---they are not cheap. Why not just power down and/or add weight/and or run a higher gear/and or get a bigger tire until there is no spin?

It would seem more economical this way. i know racing is not cheap, but this is one area you can control.
 
#27 ·
Jim...ya got the brass ring! :thumbsup: Was waitin' for someone to pick up and ID that line. And it that morning footage from the movie stayed with me for a long time, eh?

Getting back to the "burn out" thread...was wondering if there's any burn out contests like there were before. I think the environ people have nixed the burn out contests to a large degree, as I haven't seen any in the eastern part of Canada. They still go motor blow ups around here, but I've only seen just the one. People freaked last year when the motor died just short of a minute! I had a ticket for a minute, ten and was gonna throw it away as I thought it was a ridiculous time. Little did I know.

capt
 
#33 ·
I have been racing my 10 second slapper bar car in the electronics classes for years. I have to say that aside from the first red light,and using the crossover to hit the tree twice,the finish line game is a non issue when racing in the mostly dragster class. I am usually one of the slowest cars in the class(11.99 cutoff). No driver can drive the finish line in a faster or slower car when there is a speed difference of over 50mph. I typically run 10.60's at about 127,and my opponents run 7.30's at 180+. The important part is to be realistic about how fast your car can run and still be consistent. I ran nitrous for years,and my car runs deep into the 9's with 1.30 60 foots on 11" wide street tires and slapper bars,but I could never bracket race it like that,it just isn't consistent enough(and I dont have a cage in the car anyhow). I can run on motor alone and run 10.40's in good air.10.60's in bad air and 1.45 60 foots,and the car will repeat down to a few thousandths most of the time. If I wanted to bracket race going much faster I would backhalf the car for some 16.0x33's and a 4 link.
 
#34 ·
The important part is to be realistic about how fast your car can run and still be consistent. .
Puff Puff,

Notice what Rich and I wrote-the issue in brackets is firstly to be consistent (and I mean to the hundredth or better) and to be as fast as you can be without jeopardizing that consistency.

The key to doing that in bracket racing is to have a car that will hook as it is very hard to have a repeatable car if it spins. One of the things that helps a car hook and gain consistency is to heat the tires via a burnout.

Consider this-I think it's safe to say that at most local type tracks to win the race you need to win 6-8 rounds, maybe more or less depending on number of entries and buybacks and etc....to take a 10 sec car out for such an event you figure in your costs- say a 100 mile tow roundrip (50 bucks) 10 runs on the car (2 TT's and 8 rounds of competition for another 80 bucks in gas or alky, give or take 20 bucks), entry fee of 60 bucks, maybe a buyback in the second round when you rolled the beams or missed the tree (another 30 bucks), wear and tear on non tire related parts (say 300 runs on the motor and trans before it's freshened-if nothing is hurt at the end of the year that's about 100 bucks for the event, give or take 50 here) and then the cost of the slicks. 15 years ago I ran a Camaro with 32x14.5's, would get around 200 passes out of a set of tires....same tires today run about 600 bucks for the pair. That comes out to around 3 bucks a run, all of about 30 bucks for this 10 run event.

The cost for running this car is probably around 300 bucks for the event. Only about 10% of the cost in running the car is in the slicks, give or take a few bucks.

Now...the best part. Let's say you skimp on the burnouts to save the tires.... your costs are still around $300 and in the quarterfinals-round 7-you lose 2 hundredths in the sixty because the tires didn't dead hook like they had been. Maybe some dew on the track, maybe you were out of the grove just a smidgen, whatever. If you had done the burnouts-which may or may not be required-the car probably wouldn't have lost those precious 2 hundredths in the 60 and your opponet wouldn't be whompin' the throttle on ya at 1000'.

Instead of going all the way and taking the trophy at the end of the night you're loading up thinking about 'what could have been'.

Racers like burnouts because they are cool as anything. But they serve a purpose above all else.
 
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