With street radials I know that doing a burnout has a negative affect because of the water in the tread. But are you not allowed to do a burnout before the waterbox and then go around it?

 

I believe the reason you don't do a burnout is that most street tires, especially all-season radials, are a 400 treadwear compound and glaze when heated. When the tires glaze, they slip worse than without burnout.

 

I've found that to be not true. Towards the end I pulled consistant 2.0xx 60 foots with a best of 2.022 on the car's stock SE 215/60/15 all-season radials (they came with the car on sawblades). You need to do a burnout when there's VHT on the track. On weekends. With the big 8-9-10 second ET Bracket slicked cars that pull wheelies.

Most guys hope to run good 60-foot times on "street nights" when VHT is non-existant and jam packed with FWD civics on their winter tires dragging the water through the burnout pad. Sometimes the track is even worse than the street. On the street you barely hook 2nd gear, but later that night at the track it spins through 2nd.

Watch the slow FWD cars and the sixty that appears the most on the boards is 2.44. Always. Ugh.

 

I would agree with JClaw on the track prep on test and tune nights. At least at the track I've been to, there is no VHT and you are essentially driving half way down the track on rubber left behind by other cars. You can easily spin through first and most of second. The only cars I saw turn better than 2.0 60's were V8 rwd cars with DR or slicks.

 

JClaw, in your experience, using slicks on a track w/good VHT prep, do you prefer staging "in the rubber" or do you stage on the VHT-coated track surface instead?

I mostly use a track that does great VHT prep and track cleaning during every session, but I get mixed 60' results on where I stage the car. There are always some monster cars running these nights, so there's lot of fresh rubber on the track. Maybe it's just me.