RWD Burnouts (Brakestands)

First determine if you should go through the Water Box.
If you are going to do a water burn out:

1. Roll into the water box and past the middle of it. You don’t want to be too close to the middle or it will be difficult to burn off all the water.
2. Rev your motor up… (depending on how much power/torque you’re making you may want to rev pretty high – maybe 1-2k under redline.
3. Drop the clutch and get the tires spinning.
4. After you get your RPMs back up and your tires are spinning you’ll need to get your LEFT FOOT onto the brake pedal. Gently now, just enough to keep the car from creeping forward. Too hard on the brakes and you’ll kill your burnout. Too soft on the brakes and you’ll roll forward too much and get too close to the line.
5. Feather the gas and keep your engine in the strong part of the powerband. Don’t sit there bouncing off the rev limiter unless you have an EMS or aftermarket ignition that cuts spark automatically for you.
6. You should probably burnout for at least 4-5 seconds. Possibly longer depending on the type of tires you have on your car. In some rear wheel drive cars and trucks you can sit there all day if you want to (not recommended unless you really like punishing your car and you’ve got a lot of money to spend on tires)
7. Roll out and stage. You’re ready to race.

If you’re NOT going through the water box (dry burn-out or brake-stand)

1. Drive AROUND the water box, NOT THROUGH IT.
2. Follow everything else above. It will be more difficult to initiate the burnout when your tires are dry so you may have to rev it up higher before you drop the clutch.
3. Your tire rubber won’t exactly be hot and melty but doing a little burnout before you get to the line will help knock all the little crap off your tires before your launch.

FWD Burnouts (Honda, Acura, and other front wheel drive car owners read on…)

First determine if you should go through the Water Box.
If you are going to do a water burn out:

1. Roll into the water box and past the middle of it. You don’t want to be too close to the middle or it will be difficult to burn off all the water.
2. Pull your ebrake (emergency brake) up as hard as you can [if you have one of those foot brakes I'm not sure if you should attempt this part since you don't have as much control over how fast you can engage and dis-engage the emergency brake]
3. Rev your motor up… (depending on how much power/torque you’re making you may want to rev pretty high – maybe 1-2k under redline
4. Drop the clutch and try to make some smoke! Feather the gas and keep it in the power-band. Don’t sit there bouncing off the engine rev limiter unless you have an aftermarket Engine Management System to stop fuel cut from kicking in or ignition that cuts spark automatically for you.
5. You should probably burnout for at least 4-5 seconds. Possibly longer depending on your tires. Your car will pull you forward eventually-you don’t have to do a burnout this long if you don’t want to.
6. Roll out and stage. You’re ready to race.

If you’re NOT going through the water box (dry burnout with FWD)

1. Drive AROUND the water box, NOT THROUGH IT.
2. Pull your ebrake up as hard as you can [Again be careful if you don't have a traditional hand actuated emergency brake. For example automatic 2005 Infiniti G35s have emergency brakes that are controlled with the driver's foot.]
3. Rev your motor up… (depending on how much power/torque you’re making you may want to rev pretty high – maybe 1-2k under redline
4. Drop the clutch and hope nothing breaks! Unless your tires are pretty bald (or they’re just crappy tires) then you won’t be able to do this for more than a few seconds. If you’ve got a modified car with forced induction then you can probably do some damage to your tires here if you burn out long enough. Don’t sit there bouncing off the rev limiter unless you have an EMS or ignition that cuts spark automatically for you.
5. Your tires won’t exactly be “hot” but doing a little burnout before you get to the line will help knock all the little crap off your tires before your launch.

Turbo and supercharged cars will benefit more from a nice burnout since they need all traction they can get.

The Water Box. You’ll typically see racers with slicks go through the water box and do burnouts. Cars that make decent power can do some very nice smoky burnouts. American muscle cars (old and new alike) are usually the burnout kings. Lots of horsepower + lots of torque + water = huge clouds of smoke.

Years ago it was unacceptable to roll through the water box on “street” tires. Now depending on the drag strip you’re at you may or may not be able to drive through the water box on DOT approved street tires whether they’re made for racing or not.

If you are NOT going to do a burnout, then just drive around the water box. It doesn’t make sense to get your tires wet if you’re not going to smoke those tires.

If you ARE going to do a burnout on street tires, first check with track officials to ensure that it’s ok to do it at that track. Infineon Raceway (previously Sears Point Raceway) is actually ok with water box burnouts on DOT approved drag radials as well as high performance summer street tires. Again, when in doubt just ask!

It used to be common practice to first drive around the water box and then back up into it if you are racing a rear wheel drive car. Times do change. Now at Infineon they want you to just drive straight in and NOT back in.