He plants one foot on the accelerator, one foot on the brake, and the rear tires begin to spin and scream. Thick, white smoke starts to billow from beneath the racecar, drifting into a grandstand filled with cheering fans. Engine parts mangle and melt. If he's really good, the driver can make the tires blow out, the loose pieces of tread ripping into the sheet metal of the rear end. When they finally roll the thing into Victory Lane, the vehicle is a charred, smoking husk of what it used to be.

All-Star Race

SPEED will again broadcast the Sprint Showdown and All-Star Race. Tune in at 7 p.m. ET on May 17 to watch rivals race for $1 million -- and the fireworks!

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That's the burnout, the post-race celebration of choice among the young drivers who dominate the Sprint Cup circuit. For years, drivers like Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson have wowed spectators with their ability to produce copious amounts of smoke and noise, their vehicles often streaking down the frontstretch like top fuel cars after taking the checkered flag. It's long been an unofficial competition, with drivers critiquing each others' burnouts, copying certain techniques or adding new ones of their own. Saturday night, for the first time, some of NASCAR's best will rev engines and spin tires with a little something on the line.

Five drivers -- Johnson, Harvick, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer and Kyle Busch -- will compete in the inaugural Pennzoil Burnout Challenge, which will be held at Lowe's Motor Speedway before the qualifying event for the Sprint All-Star Race. In similarly prepared Richard Petty Driving Experience cars repainted in all-star colors, drivers will have to perform a full, drag-racing style burnout between two designated points followed by 360-degree spins. The winner will earn $10,000 for his preferred charity.

Humpy Wheeler, president and general manager of the Charlotte track, sees the burnout contest as a skills challenge comparable to those surrounding other all-star events, such as the slam dunk contest in basketball or the home run derby in baseball. But drivers just seem to dig the idea of burning out in a car that's not their own.

"It's fun to do burnouts," said Biffle, a 12-time race winner on NASCAR's premier circuit. "I think I do a pretty good burnout, but it's a matter of the tire holding together, too. These cars have so much power and control that it's easy to do a burnout, but what happens is, obviously, the tire will come apart and tear the quarterpanels off the car. NASCAR doesn't like that when you're in post-race inspection and the quarterpanels are ripped off it, so you've got to be kind of careful."

No one is going to be worried about being careful Saturday night -- in fact, Bowyer even crashed while attempting a burnout during an event last month to announce the competition. But normally burnouts can take a tremendous toll on the car, bursting valve springs, tearing up valve trains and destroying front brakes. After his first Cup victory, at California in 2002, Johnson's celebratory burnout so toasted the engine in his No. 48 car that he long remembered the pained look on the face of engine builder Randy Dorton. Given that Sprint Cup engines cost tens of thousands of dollars, it's not unheard of for a car owner to congratulate his winning driver, and then order him to take it a little easier next time.

Harvick -- famous for an epic burnout following his 2003 victory at Indianapolis, which left his tires and his car's back end in shreds -- is considered the sport's preeminent burnout artist.

Harvick -- famous for an epic burnout following his 2003 victory at Indianapolis, which left his tires and his car's back end in shreds -- is considered the sport's preeminent burnout artist. The Richard Childress Racing driver traces his burnout roots to longtime Craftsman Truck Series driver Ron Hornaday, who once after a victory at Memphis Motorsports Park unleashed a smoker so ferocious that car owner Dale Earnhardt ordered him to stop. Harvick's personal favorite is Jack Sprague's following a 2001 Truck race victory at Richmond International Raceway, a burnout so incendiary that the tires caught fire.

"That was probably the coolest one that I've seen," said Harvick, an 11-time Cup race winner. "I don't think I've been able to do that one."

On the surface, it doesn't seem that difficult. On the cool-down lap a driver turns his car's brake bias knob so most of the vehicle's stopping power is concentrated on the front wheels. Entering the frontstretch, he revs the engine, pops the clutch, and mashes down hard on the brake and gas pedals at the same time. With the front wheels locked and the rear wheels spinning, the car lurches forward, a trail of smoke behind it. But it's a delicate procedure -- some race winners have managed only a few embarrassing puffs. Four-time champion Jeff Gordon was invited to participate in Saturday's event, but declined. "I am terrible at doing them," he said (listen to more).

The secret? "Probably not too much wheel speed," Biffle said. "You can tell how much load the engine has on it. There are all kinds of things you can do and you can tell when they start getting slippery and the back tires are getting hot. It's fun to drive the car down the racetrack, especially if it has a little bit of banking on it. The car will want to just sit there and go sideways down the track, so it's fun to do them."

But to these burnout specialists, the Petty cars are an unknown. "I'll hop in there and see what the car will do," said Johnson, who's won 34 times. "I'm not sure how much horsepower it will have or what the tire situation is going to be on the cars. Hopefully I'm not the first guy. I'll watch the guys in front of me and have some fun and let her rip."

Not everyone is a fan. Some car owners suffer burnouts begrudgingly, knowing what kind of damage they do to a car. And then there are the old-timers, who remember the days before race teams became multi-million-dollar operations, and any piece of equipment was too valuable to waste. Few will forget the sight of then-46-year-old Terry Labonte, after his final career victory in the final Labor Day Southern 500, simply coasting around Darlington Raceway while holding a checkered flag. There would be no burnout for a man who broke into the sport in 1978.

"I watch those guys do that all the time," he said then. "I just think, I can't imagine if you did that, the look on Junior Johnson's face when you pulled back in with his car. You win the race, and you destroy the engine and transmission and all this stuff. I don't think it would have gone over too well years back."

How times have changed. Saturday night Harvick will aim to purposely inflict damage, going for style points. "Just blow the tires out," he said. "That's what I'm going for. Just pop the tires."

But then, how will he get to Victory Lane? "Oh," he said, "we can walk."