Burnout looks interesting, but the greater the burnout, the more smoke that blurs the vision. Now, an Australian drone operator has found a solution to this problem: shoot a burnout match with a thermal imaging camera.

Air Queensland was first discovered by The Drive and published this high-tech way of checking burnout on YouTube. The short video shows two burnouts of approximately one minute, including traditional and thermal imaging.

As a review, thermal imaging makes visible infrared radiation that is not normally visible. This means that anything that is hot appears bright, while everything else appears in a darker tone. So instead of a cloud of smoke, you can actually see what the car is doing and follow the path of its tire damage.

Through thermal imaging, the tire and its trajectory appear as luminous stripes, as if the Ghost Rider is behind the wheel. When a tire bursts during a burnout, something that looks like lava will be scattered.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Australia is leading the way in burnout observation innovation. Land Down Under, the perennial holder of the largest simultaneous burnout record, recaptured it from Saudi Arabia in 2019, with 126 cars smoking together.

Thanks to Holden and Ford rear-wheel drive cars, Australia has long been a good source of fatigue-resistant cars. Although these cars have been mainstream in Australia much longer than in the United States, the end of Australian car production prevented this. General Motors stopped Holden sales in 2020, but still plans to sell Chevrolet Corvette and Silverado in Australia. We look forward to seeing them in future burnout competitions.

This article was originally published by Motor Authority, an editorial partner of ClassicCars.com.

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