Most guys use up the tread on their tires in the burnout box by just killing the tire in the water. This is a waste of rubber and actually does more harm than good. The ideal tire temp is generally within 10 degrees of track temp. And the tire being CLEAN is actually MORE important than the temp............Think back to how many times you have seen cars at the track, some really HIGH HP cars have a problem and either NOT get a burnout, or just a light one. They STILL generally go right down the track. Guys that tell you that their car "won't hook" unless they just boil the tires have no clue about what their car REALLY needs to work, because setting the tire on fire and getting the rubber really hot and squishy is NOT the answer to making a car hook.
With our car, we do LONG burnouts, but we do not do HARD burnouts. How is that possible?........Easy, we do a "rolling burnout" like a fuel car. He rolls through the puddle, I tell him when to strike the tire, he mats it and puts it in high gear and I also tell him when to let off. We make a LOT of wheelspeed fast and don't cook the tire. I do NOT want him to burn across the line with radials, as they can tear up the rubber on the line.......BUT, I DO want him to "roll" across the line out to about 60ft with the hot clean tires to leave some tracks. If I need MORE heat, I roll him through the puddle slow, if it is hot outside I move him through the puddle fast. Again, we do NOT cook the tire or even make a whole lot of smoke. That is just wasting the tire for no reason.
Monte