Another Ford Fest means another Burnout Competition at Beech Bend! The rules are simple: you must have a driver’s license, long pants, seat belt, and your ride must be Ford powered! That’s it!

Competition is simple too: make the fans happy. Tire smoke is key, for sure, but action too. The inside of the autocross course is sectioned off into a large, 250 foot-wide burnout box. As long as you remain within the box, bury the throttle and let ‘er rip! Host Chad Reynolds asked the crowd to vote through applause after each competitor’s time ran up.

This year saw a great variety of rides take on the challenge. Up first in his miss-matched-body panel 1985 LTD LX was Dwayne Carroll. You may not notice, but this ‘ole Ford had two VS Racing pink-colored turbos sticking through the grille. It’s a twin-turbo Gen-II Coyote with a blow-through carb. There aren’t many carbureted Gen-II Coyotes; Dwayne custom built the intake and used an MSD ignition for a 5.4L, but repined the connector to work on the Coyote. He made a decent showing but fell short of burnout victory.

Holley’s Ford Bronco II didn’t exactly do a great burnout, but it did make a lot of smoke…clutch smoke. Unable to get the big tires to spin, Filthy Rich from YouTube’s DeBoss Garage laid in it hard to make smoke anyway he could. Eventually, the clutch let go, and Rich was out of the seat. Safety workers were quick to act in case of fire, and the Bronco II was gently carried off of the burnout pad on the back of a flatbed.

When he finished racing in the Mustang Hub Grand Champion, Alex Hunter thrashed in the burnout contest in his 2005 V6 Mustang. Considering that the set of tires the Mustang was wearing had to last him through the whole weekend, including the 3S Challenge the next morning, a burnout contest might not have been the best idea, but who were we to stop anybody from having fun? With a whopping 181 horsepower on tap, he maintained a high wheel speed to make runner-up in the contest.

The winner of the contest was Slate White from Amherst, Tennessee, in his 1980 Fairmont wagon. It’s swapped with a four-valve Ford from a 1998 Cobra. The car was purpose-built for burnouts, with two simple racing seats and a bare-bones interior. They put on a good show, staying in the throttle throughout the entire 60 seconds.