CCRMIT :: Haunted Hills Christmas Break Up 2013

It’s that time of year again when I find myself at my favorite track watching a group of true racing enthusiast. Track time is hard to get and what better Christmas present than to push your car to its limits around a killer track. I arrived early to find only a couple of cars in attendance. This worried me and to pass the time I decided to take a few pics on the track before the cars got out there.

CCRMIT is primarily a gravel rally discipline based club but every once in a while they hit the bitumen track. Haunted Hills is just the track to end the year with. Both amateurs and pros love this track because it has so much variety.

The cars soon arrived and the excitement started to build. There was a good selection of front wheel drive and rear wheel drive cars which meant the competition would be good.

From the old four cylinder banger to the current one; all of the cars were getting ready to hit the track! Tyre changes, oil changes, suspension adjustments and many other setup changes were happening before the drivers got their chance to get their cars on the track.

Thankfully there were no early crashes, although many competitors first runs on the track were massively aggressive! Lots of wheel spin and brake lock ups represented each competitors excitement to be navigating this awesome track.

One of the most modern cars on the track was this Toyota 86. Not everyone has the confidence to push a brand new car around a track at silly speeds but true drivers do.

This Impreza rally car was lucky to only just clip the orange cone on the inside of the corner and not take out the lot of them. Taking that inside line with enough power to get up the hill is a tricky one. Often people would take too much speed into this corner and occasionally drop a wheel on the exit.

That infamous Hyundai Lantra! “Yeah its three wheeling” aggressive in style and like a bull in a china shop Christopher smashes times on the track.

Exactly one year ago this Levin was at the very same event and in 2013 the car does not look any different. Although this is a front wheel drive Levin it was getting around the track very smoothly with little under steer.

There are some people on the track that are not afraid to use their handbrake on the tarmac and Christopher is one of them. Keeping up momentum on this track can be hard especially when your pushing a small four cylinder up lots of hills.

Upon arrival this Escort had a 4 wheel swap over from rally dirt tyres to a smaller diameter set of slicks. I couldn’t believe how small these wheels were; they looked like go kart wheels!

With smaller wheels on John’s Escort he had some extra pep in the acceleration department. This combined with soft suspension makes for some wicked corner speed and wheel stands!

Launching out of corners like a ballistic missile this Escort was making light work of this track. With a talented rally driver behind the wheel it was easy to see that this car was putting down some fast lap times.

This Celica hit the track later in the day and with its GT4 castrol WRC livery everyone was watching it go round.

Haunted Hills has many interesting corners. This downhill section can often catch people out because it s easy to carry too much speed into it and run off.

Another car that was at last years Christmas break up was …. Celica. It’s always a joy to see this car pumping around the track. I would like to see more of these on the track but sadly this is the only one I have ever seen on a track.

This VH Commodore was very unpredictable. Every third or forth lap it would bust out a full noise drift style lap. With smoke and wild throws into corners I’m surprised this old girl didn’t flip.

Talk about a smile! It’s not what you drive it’s how you drive it! This little ke20 had plenty of battle scars and by the looks of things had also done some serious kilometres.

The Chrysler Lancer is not your everyday Lancer. Although this looks similar to the 2000 gt lift back Celica it was made two years after the Celica and had considerably less styling than the Celica of the time.

My favorite thing about this car is the horse emblem on the steering wheel. It is so pimp! Not to mention the crazy array of sunken dials right across the dash.

It’s great to see more women on the track these days even if they are scaring the shit out of their mothers.

Surprisingly there were two ford esscorts at the track and both were pushing it all day long. Although these

It was great to see the CCRMIT club again they definitely have not lost their passion for racing. Apparently this will be the last time the CCRMIT Christmas break up will be held at the haunted hills race track and that makes me sad because it is one of those events i look forward to every year.
Thanks for reading,
Grant