Those of you who know me personally will know that I don’t usually get mad at much. I’m a live-and-let-live kinda bloke. Our Goth-uncle Adrian may have white-hot rage at someone painting a DeLorean and not leaving it in the fingerprint-finding stainless steel finish while I just see someone who decided to make their car their own. Swap any drivetrain into anything you want, do what you want with your own car as long as it’s safe and roadworthy. One thing I’ve been holding in for a while now, though, is the absolutely abysmal state of burnouts in the USA and how it makes Aussies both amused and annoyed at the same time. You’re having to shut down your own car shows because you don’t know how, when, or why to do a burnout.
Y’all have all these big V8 sedans, why is just about every burnout video from the States so hopeless? I’m not talking about takeovers here, which we all know is just plain reckless and irresponsible hooning. Remember, hooning shouldn’t harm others.
To reiterate: We here at the Autopian love hooning, as long as it is done in a safe manner and not in public spaces. Takeovers, street racing and reckless speeding/showing off are not cool and not impressive. Whilst some of the video examples below are of hooning on public streets, please do not take this as us condoning such behavior.
I’m talking about people who should know better and DO better, especially if they are posting this stuff on the internet for kudos.
The inspiration for this article came from Matt sharing this hopeless excuse for a burnout in the Slack:
As we can see, this Cadillac CTS-V appears to be at least doing their burnouts in an industrial area, a better spot than your average takeover crowd who insist on shutting down intersections. The area is quite large and the surface is soaked in water, a good way to learn car control and try your hand at the style of burnouts/donuts we do Down Under. The big crowd is a significant risk, and barriers exist at all levels of motorsport for a reason.
Yet, even with the combination of hundreds of horsepower, a wet surface and plenty of space there isn’t much of a burnout although old mate does manage to get a small amount of smoke out of the tires with the traction-control going mental before the left-rear tyre pops and does some instant rear-quarter panel modification on the way out.
Even with the traction control off I’m not sure he would have managed anything impressive based on that lack of foresight. I replied that I am yet to see an American burnout on video that is even halfway as impressive as the average video on Instagram from an Aussie P-Plater in a six-cylinder car. For example:
Or
Or
I think ‘skid culture’ in Australia developed as much of a result of our low population density and obsession with rear-wheel-drive as any other cause. Outside of the major cities, there are thousands of kilometres of roads that see only very light usage. Add in bored teenagers with powerful RWD vehicles, many of whom are used to sliding around in the dirt on their farms.
‘Circlework’ as a vehicle contest is pretty similar, country fun also turned into a judged event with the competition at Deni Ute Muster being a ‘one-minute run per ute with points being awarded for driving skills, number and execution of circles.’
I’m not the biggest fan of burnouts as a sport or entertainment, like a lot of people I lose interest after a few competitors at a contest but I know a good burnout when I see one (and *may* have done the odd one long before smartphones), and unfortunately most American burnouts just ain’t it.
Most of the American burnout videos (contest or otherwise) I see that aren’t absolute failures seem to be brake-stands or otherwise stationary, with the worst examples having the vehicle chained or nose-up against a wall in a puddle. At that point, what are you really achieving here?!
The odd actual American burnout that’s not in a straight-line seems to include them hitting walls like FarmTruck did when it came to Australia for Summernats. Even Cleetus McFarland and Derek Bieri, while they are getting better at doing Aussie-style burnouts. still seem to hit the wall or need to stop and restart the burnout pretty frequently, in a burnout box that is much bigger than what we use Down Under, which can be a minimum of 50ft x 50ft.
Getting there, but not quite up to our standards for car control and technique.
What Americans in the videos I see seem to struggle with is what is known here as the ‘tip in’, where you throw the car into a spin to start the donuts whilst burning the tires. For example:
There are some Aussie burnout competitors known for absolutely mental tip-ins such as Andrew ‘LYNCHY’ Lynch, with the short-wheelbase vehicles such as ’70s Toyota Corollas and Suzuki Mighty Boys naturally making great spinners.
You need instant tire smoke from the moment you start spinning the wheels and start the tip-in. From there you need to make sure you keep the smoke going, not stalling or dropping too many revs and regaining grip as that costs you points in a competition environment and just doesn’t project coolness.
You don’t need massive amounts of power to keep the smoke going, the elite competitors use 1000+ hp V8 cars to ensure that they get instant, high-volume smoke and are able to keep that smoke up throughout the event. There are plenty of six-cylinder and even rotary burnout cars that have done burnouts as good as the big-guns.
A tricked-up small block V8 will do a great job on a budget as well, as demonstrated by my mate Matt’s old burnout car ‘DAMAGED’, an XD Falcon with a naturally-aspirated 351 ‘Cleveland’ V8. As can be seen in the linked video, it pops both tires just after one minute which is the ideal.
As per the official rules for burnout judging (2021 rules here) at one of the largest burnout competitions in Australia, Summernats, you can accumulate up to 50 points of a possible 100 on tire smoke alone, separated into Instant Smoke (10 points), Constant Smoke (20 points) and Volume of Smoke (20 points) with the remaining 50 allocated to Driving Skill.
Penalties that detract from your score include stopping or stalling (-10 points), having to reverse whilst in the box (-10), contact with a barrier (-10), failure to drive off the pad/mechanical failure (-10), the car catching alight in a big fire (-10) and leaving the box with a burnout tire still inflated (-5 per tire).
Failure to reach 60 seconds can result in a ‘Did Not Finish’ (DNF), with 10 points deducted per 5 seconds under the 60 second mark, up to a maximum loss of 40 points.
America readily latched onto drift culture from Japan and now has high-level competition and some great talent. Now is the time for you to step up and meet your Down Under cousins at our level of hooning.
You have access to far more powerful vehicles, both in hp and in volume. We’ve adopted so many of your customs such as Halloween and the gig economy, time you take a leaf out of our book.
Take it up a notch and bring your skills and videos through the roof, or us Aussies will keep swearing into our beers and declaring that these terrible Yankee skid videos have got nothing I want.
Last time I tried to do a burnout was in a Corvair in high school. I might be the only one ever to break a 2-speed Powerglide transmission.
“I think ‘skid culture’ in Australia developed as much of a result of our low population density and obsession with rear-wheel-drive as any other cause. Outside of the major cities, there are thousands of kilometres of roads that see only very light usage. Add in bored teenagers with powerful RWD vehicles, many of whom are used to sliding around in the dirt on their farms”
You know your commonwealth compatriots to our north have an almost identical low population density to yours with just as many thousands of kms of empty roads and plenty of bored teenagers. Dunno about the powerful RWD vehicles but they do have lots of farm trucks to play with.
I think those commonwealth compatriots are more likely to take the sled out for a rip rather than muck about with doing a burnout in the truck (although the odd pair of 11’s aren’t that weird to see out on paved sideroads).
I’ve heard they do have a couple/few months of the year without winter. I’d think that’s when burnouts get done.
With my first car, each spring I bought a new pair of BFG Radial T/A’s in 275/60-15 for the rear of my car. By fall they were bald. Winter tires were a set of 215/75-14 tires from Sears (they guaranteed 80,000 km on the tires) and in the spring I would tear the rears up until they were bald. Got a wee bit expensive – not the Sears all-seasons, they were just about free with the pro-rated warranty. The T/A’s were not cheap however.
So are you Australian or Canadian?
Canuck.
“time you take a leaf out of our book.”
Happy to. Send s’more manual transmission Chevy SSs – sorry, *Holden Commodores* our way and we’ll see if we can’t do better.
.
Do Americans vs Aussies do burnouts for distance in the same way?
Haha I like the videos! It’s almost like those Middle East car spinning videos but with actual skill and bad ass RWD V8 El Camino (utes.) Wish we had those in USA. There’s a lime green one in SE Wisconsin with the G8 front end. Bet he registered it as a G8. WI does not even check what you register- no inspection. That said ‘normal’ burnout in Murica speak is 2 fat stripes with lots of smoke with some tail wag while riding the brake a bit for dramatic for style points. I like both! My 2 sets of rear tires/ year on the V1 approve. I the street in front of my driveway. Looks like a drag strip launch box 🙂 surprised they haven’t knocked on my door.. Awesome article!!!
You’re right about it having something to do with low population density outside major cities, and lots of lightly-trafficked roads – during all the country miles I drive for work, I’ve noticed most towns big enough to have a local hoon culture generally have an unofficially designated spot on a quiet road somewhere just outside the town where all the burnouts are done. You’ll be driving into a town and see a quiet side road painted with hundreds of metres of tyre marks and pieces of shredded tyres.
It does look like people like Cleetus McFarland seeing and attempting to replicate Australian style burnouts, including running their own competitions, may lead to increased popularity and more burnout car builds over there.
Back when I worked grinding performance camshafts, one of my workmates knew burnout legend Gary Myers and got involved in the build of his XA Falcon hardtop (GM671) – unfortunately Gary decided not to try the build idea I had for the rear end, as the way burnouts were scored it might have cost him points. The idea was to build a dually style rear end with a very short diff housing to keep all 4 tyres under the guards, but where the inner pair of rims/tyres were a couple of inches smaller diameter than the outers. This way, only the outer tyres would touch the ground at the start, you could fry them quickly until they blow, but instead of that finishing your run, the car would simply drop onto the inner tyres and fry those as well!
That sounds like a bad ass build! Clever AF. I like it already! Very cool
This has been a ‘thing’ for years… with the competitions like Cleetus McFarlands etc you’d think it’d improve… Aussies are even better than yanks at powerskids… having had v8 2 doors for decades you’d think they would have mastered the powerskid
People in the US who want to do slidey stuff with their car and learn/demonstrate car control get into drifting. America plays football differently, too. What’s the big deal?
If you thought this was a serious article, I have a bridge coming onto the market…..
Seriously, though – American burnout culture is getting pretty boring. Sometimes I wonder why I still pay for the Motortrend web TV subscription. Roadkill does the same thing every time: buy a garbage car, get it running, drive it someplace, and do straight-line burnouts. I’m a Mopar guy…but they can turn corners too!
Drag racing guys don’t know how to turn
Turning is for getting onto the return road after your run.
Awesome piece, mate. I really enjoyed it regardless of not being into burnouts. Cheers, bud!
Cheers SWG! Same, not a hard core fan but can appreciate the car control and mechanical work that goes into it at the top-level, same as top-fuel drag racing
This is slander, meet me in Tonga, punk.
Real answer: Australias burnout scene has way more money in it. In the US, if you’re dropping 75k into a build. You’re getting a drift car or a drag car. Maybe an odd time attack special. Any other programs outside of those select few, you’re about to hemorrhage alot of your money.
I watched a whole lot of Summer Nats. Which I guess is Australian burn out Christmas. And selection bias; but none of those cars were all that cheap. Whole lot of cages and tube frames up in there. Fully built engines by an actual engine build.
When your peak contest is in the parking lot of VFW for 50 bucks. it’s not really worth it to go balls to the wall and build a turbo GTO pushing 40 psi or something ridiculous like that.
In summary: Learn to drift, like your much cooler Kiwi counterparts.
My mates XD Falcon had less than $10k in it
To be fair, 10k isn’t nothing when talking fun special use car. It puts you into entry level drift car territory. So, you can either by the worst 240 you’ve ever seen and take it drifting most weekends in summer. Or get a cammed LS in something and go to the bimonthly burnout contest at some bar/ car show. There is just no reason here to build a true burnout car. There’s no AM/Proam/Pro pyramid to aspire and thus pump more money into your program. As the biggest burnout event is probably LSfest which is the pre show to the drifting event.
Granted, I’m starting to see moreAussie style burnout contests, as drifting is a money cannon arms race right now. But it’s still just a loose event here and there during like a clean culture car show and can often be heavily intertwined with the takeover scene example; The Getback Boys. Maybe the infrastructure will catch on, and we’ll have SummerNats level events inspiring the youth to practice their donuts. But as of now, it’s kinda a sideshow and often considered less-than by some well established persons in Motorsport here.
And my Datsun 180B SSS (turbo FJ20ET conversion) cost less than $2500, but did burnouts 1/2 km long – soaking tyres in diesel overnight was also a good way to increase smoke output!
^^^i like this guy!! I’ll consider the diesel tire soak to send off my tires for the winter. Thanks!
Had an old 54 GMC pickup that would barely even squeak the tires from a dead stop. Buddy of mine suggested we coat the tire in motor oil and see what would happen. We spun that truck around in circles, in a church parking lot no less, sliding and smoking that oil into a fog. We didn’t have much but we found a way of entertain ourselves. The punishment for the church burnout was totally worth it.
As a born-Australian now living in Texas I’m honestly more blown away that meat pies and sausage rolls never caught on here.. especially with how much people here love to eat and drive!
Are they deep fried? BBQ’d? Drizzled with melted cheese?
Well there’s your answer.
I love you Lawrence! This is hilariously offensively unoffensive. I’m not offended. I’m inspired. I have some answers. The first was the knee-jerk reaction to your headline alone, something along the lines of “cause we don’t or can’t do burnouts in our garages”, but that doesn’t make sense and is probably funnier from someone who is funny. The other reason is we don’t have the utes like you do. I think that is the magic. Through osmosis, other cars are then able to do it as well. Since our ute percentages are probably in the 1 in 100,000 range, that just means the osmosis is logarithmically less, and hence the fewer burnouts.
Since pervasive HOA’s seem to be a uniquely American phenomenon, the answer must be that there aren’t enough garages where you’re allowed to do shed skids.
Laurence, if you could, give us a little flavor for how your police look on burnouts in public areas. Not roads maybe but parking lots, etc.
I know Australia’s pretty strict on this sorta stuff overall, but curious if burnouts are mostly a shed or sanctioned event thing, or if you ever see them in the wild (as it were).
Aussie police are just as heavy-handed on burnouts in public areas as they are with speeding.
My home state will still bust you for doing it in a carpark, designating it a ‘road-related area’ http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/rr2014104/s13.html
There’s penalties for those filming or watching as well: https://jamesonlaw.com.au/traffic-law/burnout/busted-doing-a-burnout-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
This of course doesn’t stop people going and doing skids in an industrial estate or country road, they’re strategic with hiding plates and anything else identifying if they’re smart.
Fortunately the statute of limitations is still 12 months for driving offences.
That statute of limitations, plus the fact most of my shenanigans occurred in a pre-mobile phone era ( thus few incriminating photos and videos) is a large part of me not getting in more trouble!
This is the type of burnout done at events in the US in a burnout pit like at Holey Moparty. Usually when we, the US, think of a burnout its stationary with the front wheels locked at first and then laying 11s for as long as possible in a straight line.
This is a half-formed theory, but North America went much harder on FWD than Australia did (also, not sure what the average age of vehicles on the road looks like, but we’ve certainly got road salt killing off a lot of older cars relatively quickly up here), so there isn’t as much of a progression of RWD cars to learn on. You don’t get to start with a 30-year old V6 Commodore that might only be putting 100hp to the wheels now, and build up to better cars, you probably started on a FWD Civic and then move on to a 300+hp Charger or Mustang or something, and have absolutely no idea what to do once things get squirrely.
Confirm, started driving in hand me down Mazda family cars (MPV, CX-5), first car was a Golf, and once I got my manual RWD G70 I was like “I don’t know how to hoon and I’m too afraid to ask”
Didn’t stop me powersliding some intersections in the rain (on accident) every now and again though.
Nothing is sadder than watching a bunch of goobers running up to a wrecked car holding their phones out like Geiger counters yelling, “Oh my God! I got it on video!”
Yeah I always wonder what they do with them afterward. As in, how many of them stop and say to themselves “yeah, why did I do that? I’m not going to post this anywhere b/c what’s the point, really?”
As Americans, we don’t do introspection
Never seen an impressive American burnout? Guess you’ve never seen a Mickey Rourke film. Doesn’t get any more burnt out than that.
You talk burn out but show drifting. Maybe search words?
Did you check out the hyperlinked videos?
The Instagram videos are just to illustrate my point about Aussie car control, here’s an American burnout contest that’s trying to imitate Aussie style: https://youtu.be/-CTj6FrtTNk?si=m4GxWnPitDTWq_Qq&t=857
And just like a dozen people mentioned burn out and drifting different in the us.
Honestly with the wide tires and traction controls of most modern HI output cars, burn outs are less of a thing. can they be done, sure, but most of the people wanting to go street race do not want to shake the tires or lose in a cloud of smoke.
Well, with you guys hanging upside down, your tires don’t see nearly as much weight and are much easier to get spinning.
This comment delivers!
Clearly it’s a language issue. I saw all your videos and only saw some weird out of control drifting half-cousin.
As you said later, American burnouts are done with the car stationary. The skill is in maximizing wheelspin while not flopping all over the road. It’s a burnout, not a super smokey car seizure.
Did you check out the hyperlinks? The Insta videos were examples of Aussie street stuff, the hyperlinks have videos of Australian burnout comps, such as: https://youtu.be/qyD5biVyLmo?si=jh7OTW1Yj9Kj8Pb-
Instead of a weird form of drifting that’s now attempting to cross a burnout and very slow donuts. It’s your party, do whatever you like, just accept that’s not what American car culture historically considers a burnout.
Complaining that people don’t excel at a competition they aren’t attempting to compete at is pretty silly. Do you frequently show up at soccer games and yell at them for sucking at rugby?
Again, you guys are attempting Aussie-style burnouts as demonstrated by Cleetus and Derek and FarmTruck
Roadkill vs. Mighty Car Mods
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63aqdTkZHLw
I was really disappointed in that episode: the Roadkill boys just half-assed their build. MCM, otoh, did a really nice job creating that Subaute: they honestly built a nice goin’ ta town rig.
Um, Roadkill guys half ass EVERYTHING LOL
I was going to suggest that maybe it was the comparatively lightweight rear ends of utes, but then there was the white sedan with people hanging out of it. Nope:can’t use lack of utes as an excuse!
A light rear makes for easy wheelspin but bad drifting. Not enough inertia to whip the back around.
These Aussie burnout videos seem to be a lot closer to Gulf state drifting videos than American style burnouts/brake stands. Maybe we just define them differently?
Yeah, to most Americans ,”burnouts” are in a straight line, stationary or nearly so, and ideally both rear tires at once (avoiding the dreaded “one-wheel peel”). More like what drag racers do to warm up the tires before a run.
Also known as a “one-tire fire” or a “one-wheel wonder”.
Ask your doctor if LSD is right for you!
Nah, you just have to know where to look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CTj6FrtTNk
Asking important questions, to be honest with you, I have no idea.
Although, a well-executed burnout with nothing to point and laugh at and no collateral damage is probably less likely to get shared a lot and go viral