It's called "doing donuts".

It's a doughnut. Guy's either an idiot or pulling your leg.

doughnuts

Was he European? Not that I've ever heard the term cookie used but maybe it's common in other countries?

Because I do research for a living, I looked it up online. Wikipedia gives a couple other names for doing doughnuts, in a really poor article. So, I went further and found a few references to "cutting cookies" or "making cookies" -- one was from a retired Navy guy posting the same question in a Nebraska firearms forum, so it could be a regional thing in that part of the country.

Dave

P.S. Wikipedia also said that "spinning brodies" is also an alternate name and search for that came up with posts on a Ford Trucks forum and on NPR's "A Way with Words" program which both said that the term derives from the name of Steve Brodie, a New York City bookmaker who allegedly jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. Because Brodie had a knack for self-promotion and lived in NYC, that term entered popular culture at the time and meant to jump or fall (it also became slang for a boxer "taking a fall" to throw a fight). Eventually it was used to refer to doing any kind of a stunt and was picked up in car circles as a term for spinning out or doing doughnuts in a car.

Interestingly, a "suicide knob" for a steering wheel -- the little rotating knobs that attach to a wheel and make steering with one hand easier, is also sometimes referred to as a "brody knob" and was also derived from Steve Brodie -- again probably because of the stunt.

@Dap Poker My father-in-law called that "suicide knob" a "ladies helper". They used to put them on old semis before power steering came along so the women (and lesser men) could drive them. (My father-in-law had forearms like Popeye.)

Thanks everyone!

Donuts. He's Jedi mind-tricking you into calling them cookies.