First official burnout?

At some point in time between the era of push start n' smoke em' all the way down the track, and the burn out n' backup that continues to this day, there must have been a transition.

Who thought of warming the tires and then backing up to increase bite, and when did that happen?

Once I know this, I can die.

- Not really.

Thanks,

:Ron

 

BITMAN...I don't know exactly when, but the nitro cars use this methid to lay down rubber on the strip for traction. now these day's they don't push start anything...POP.

 

The match racers were laying down resin and burning through it to make the track stickier in the early to mid 60's. I don't know if there was anything earlier or not.
Larry T

 

First Official Burnout? Me. Slim

 

Something like this.

 

I don't claim to have definite info on who actually did the first 'burnout', but the earliest ones I saw were being done by the Factory Experimental guys[with rosin] in the early 60's. When these cars morphed into the funny car as we know it, they perfected the burnout into an art form that became almost more important than the actual run in the match race programs! The first I wouldn't dare guess , but the Chitown Hustler probably did the best and longest in the beginning...Waldo

 

I just found photo evidence of what it believed to be the first burnout known to man.

 

Did the NHRA have to zig and zag to make the rules to govern what was going on and quickly changing at that time?

It's so clinical now. I have always wondered if say, Big Daddy hit the throttle, lit em up, then did the unthinkable and backed up! Only to not smoke em and post a better e.t.

Or something like that anyway.

I guess my question is, when did the NHRA say ok, this is how we'll do it? Or was it up to the racers.

I wish I would have been there. I went to my first drags at coon rapids dragstrip in Minn. when I was 7 or 8. That would have been 1969 By that time the floppers were already well in fiberglass form. And the dragsters were doing nice well behaved organized burnouts.

Contrast that to just a few years earlier and dragster burnout and backup was still unseen.
They were pushin' and smokin em!

Or at least as all history I have been able to gleen has shown me.

This forum is great by the way. Just last night I finally found out what it is the are squirting into the blowers at startup.

And I learned it here.

 

It developed pretty rapidly in the late 60s from the earlier way to something like what they do now. It took maybe a couple of months between the first guy in a digger to try it, and it becoming standard procedure.