Performance Driving - Burning Rubber

Summary: While burnouts or burning rubber are quite impressive, if you are going one on one with an opponent or time, you are just spinning your wheels..

This is part of a possible small series of articles we are writing for the performance minded individuals, you can find more at Spool Motorsports.com Articles Here at Spool Motorsports.com we recognize the many and different types of driving styles there are... drag racing, circuit, time attacks, drifting, rally and thousands more. So let us help you transfer some of the styles that are universal back to your daily driving of your sports car. So let's start with burning rubber! Don't you love it when you smash on that throttle, squeal those tires and burn 'em rubbers? Yeah, well what you just did is waste precious seconds from which ever run you are making. Why you may ask? Your car doesn't move when you "burn rubber", it just stays in one place, spinning tires while the rest of the world passes you by. So you are going to ask me why do I see professional drivers doing just that part? Well the main reason and I don't think you might understand are those cars that drive at the highest speeds possible don't really use 1st or 2nd gear like a daily driver does. The gear itself is going to be "tall", which means that it takes a lot more gas and higher RPM to make the car move in 1st or 2nd. Consequently, the tires will screech no matter what they do or not they won't be able to keep the engine running at such high RPM's. But what if you are drag racing? Ah yes the famous burn outs. Now let's take in consideration that they use an extremely soft compound on their tires and the purpose is to warm them up so that they become "sticky". Now look at what happens when there are going to launch for their run... Any tire spin is a fatal mistake. So are their benefits of such behavior in a normal daily driving car? That depends on your compounds. Your tire manufacturer wants those tires to last long so that you can say you spend $200 dollars on tires and had to replace them after 6 months. So the compounds, comparatively speaking, are a lot harder. You would have to create such a burn out that you are literally destroying the tires more than you would ever want too, but if you have the money... So there it is a basic look at the pros or cons of burning rubber or burnouts. Now you're educated and can either use our advice or throw it out the window. Leave your comments and such, or join our small community (hopefully to be big) at Spool Motorsports.com Forums to have your say... Tell them Rex sent you.