Hillclimb – Gripshiftslide

Shockworks Bayside Matsuri :: A Beachside Touge

Grant — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 22:39:13 +0000

For the last couple of years I had heard of an event by the sea where drifters come together and burn tyres by the beach. When I received an invite to get out to South Australia and check out the Shockworks Bayside Matsuri over the October long weekend I did not hesitate.

This invite included a road trip with Mike Lake a relatively new driver to the drift scene in Victoria and Matthew Choong the local drift club president. How could i say no? Last minute repairs were still being done to the car just before it was to go on the trailer for the long trip to the event.

Everything was going according to plan except the fact that the starter motor, which was only held in with one bolt, decided to free itself when the car was restarted just as the car was being loaded onto the trailer. This then caused a difficult 3 hour fix that none of us were expecting. Once fixed we were on the road and within no time we had arrived in the sleepy town of Mount Gambier.

The first thing that shocked me was exactly how close the event was to the beach!
Held at Surfers Way, Port MacDonnell in South Australia this small beach access road had been turned into a makeshift drift track!

So how did Bayside Drift start?
Bayside Drift started when a local rally club ran a hillclimb on the same bit of road. In April 2015
Ben Collins arrived in his freshly tuned S13 and burnt tyres all day along the winding street course by the bay.

The same event rolled around in 2016 and he did the same thing! Unfortunately this time it didn’t go down so well.. He was asked to leave by one of the stewards for not driving in the spirit of the event.

Fast forward to 2017; when it came time to SEAC running their Twin Peaks Hillclimb for the third time, Ben’s drift club (South East Motorsport Alliance) were offered the opportunity to piggy back alongside their event. Sharing infrastructure, Ben ran on Saturday and they ran on Sunday.

The first event attracted roughly 25 entries from SA and Victoria and was held on one day. Same again early in 2018 Ben piggybacked off SEACs event again but was shunted to a Friday and had trouble filling a field due to the long drive between Adelaide and Melbourne. Hard to justify 10 hours of travel for only a days driving.

This was the first event solely run at Surfers Way, Port MacDonnel by South East Motorsport Alliance as a stand alone event. With only 50 spots available the event sold out very quickly. The field was a mix of drivers from Victoria and South Australia.

Among the list of drivers attending included some very well know and unknown drivers. Names like Simon Michelmore and Luke Broadbent. Both of these drivers have had years of experience and seat time in many high level drift competitions.

The mix of drivers made for some interesting driving, the less confident drivers soon became much better with experienced drivers chasing them down the track and pushing their limits. Mike Lakes BMW was on song all weekend, it didn’t miss a beat. Standing from the sidelines I watched his driving steadily improve as he tandemed with the large variety of drivers.

A surprise attendee was the amazingly unique rx7 from Cliff Clayson sporting a head turning body kit from BN-sports. Its is the very car that is being lent to Takahiro Immamura or otherwise known as the ‘Drift Samurai’ to compete in the World Time Attack International Drift Cup.

With WTAC only a week away is was a great chance for Cliff to give the car a final shakedown before the big event. Recently Cliff had the TTi GTO 6 speed sequential gearbox out of the car, and it was given a thorough going over by NEAT Gearboxes in Adelaide where It had some special treatment ready for WTAC. Along with that Cliff recently added some new MEGAN Racing Australia rear adjustable control and toe arms.

This new design allows for a lot more adjustment over the previous set up, and is far superior in strength with the gusseted bolt thru toe arm connection to the control arm.
We asked Cliff if he was excited to see his car driven by the ‘Drift Samurai’ – “I am so excited, this is a dream come true for myself and the whole team. Personally it’s such an honour to hand the Crazydog Rotorsports Rx7 leash to ‘Drift Samurai’. He has been a long time drift hero of mine, since I started watching the Japanese drift tengoku DVDs back in 2002.

Over the years I’ve been fortunate to meet Samurai on many occasions such as Tokyo Autosalon and D1GP events. I admire his aggressive driving style and individuality. I never would have dreamt anything this cool could possibly happen. A big thank you to Michael Ginn (Dorijunkie Imports) & BN Sports for making this vision a reality”.

Cliff told me that “testing it was insane! Everything is working perfectly”. The team at Garage 7 and Cliff spent the Friday doing the final checks and Saturday morning was spent with the Garage 7 tuner – Declan Walsh.

He went over the computer and shift cut parameters in time for Bayside event. Cliff did however damage the centre bearing cage on the right rear axle part way thru the day. They suspect this was due to damage which had occurred prior to the event. So upon his return to Adelaide, a spare axle will be installed ready for WTAC.

I then asked Cliff “Did you always have this BN kit in mind for the car?”
Cliff: “When I originally set out building this Rx7 back in 2008, I had an idea in my mind to make it as aggressive as possible, both mechanically and in its appearance. Over the past 10 years it has slowly evolved. The first form was completed back in 2015 which we campaigned thru till the end of 2016. It was around this time that I wanted to change the look. With the unveiling of the BN SPORTS BLS FD3S Rx7 at the 2017 Tokyo Autosalon, I knew that this kit would complete it.

With help from Michael Ginn (Dorijunkie) we were able to make this final transformation a reality. I never dreamed it could be this CRAZY but with the help of many amazing people the end result has far exceeded my expectations and I couldn’t be happier”.

I was shocked that Cliff was about to attempt this track considering how technical it is. One mistake and he could be going for a swim. Lucky Cliff was not running the car ‘balls to the wall’ rather just lightly testing the car under load to weed out any weak points before it was about to compete.

Another special guest on the day was Stewy Byrant a rather special driver who has been invited to drift all over the world because of his unique style. If you like sparks and crazy driving check out his promo reel, you will not regret it! ( https://youtu.be/4Qgk16h3uVI )
Stewy is that well respected in the drift scene that he was selected to design the brand new drift track at Taliem Bend!

With his years of experience and depth of knowledge he has even built specialised steering systems, suspension components and other wizardry to help drifters achieve more lock with greater adjustability than anything else on the market. Acostal Ms Dev is some serious gear.
Although Stewy was not driving on the day he did grab a few passenger rides with his mates. One particular ride ended in a serious hit to Simon Michelmore’s car that basically caved in his left rear wheel! Thankfully no one was hurt and the safety crew was there within seconds to render assistance.
(video of crash>facebook.com/inertiams)

The most impressive thing about this track layout is that the drivers get to experience two tracks in one. What do I mean by that? The drivers have to approach each corner differently depending on the direction of the track. The drivers all line up at a dummy grid on top of the hill and once that light goes green they drift their way to the bottom and line up again for the return run to the top.

Over the two days the drifters got more acquainted with the track and were able to form some nice drift trains in front of the small crowd that traveled a fair distance to see the special event. This new style of drift street event is a great mix between illegal streeting and a general drift event at a track.

Yet this one is completely legal with no flashing lights in sight. This could potentially breed a new type of touge competition in the future on public roads around Australia! Maybe I’m dreaming.. but at least it’s a new step in the right direction for the drift community with the limited amount of tracks that allow drifting in Australia.
Thanks for reading
-Grant

CCRMIT :: Haunted Hills Christmas Break Up 2013

Grant — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 09:45:07 +0000

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

MMSC :: Haunted Hills Track Day

Grant — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 07:34:28 +0000

Late friday night I came across a photo of a Mitsubishi Evo on a trailer, that car was Victor’s. It was on its way to Haunted Hills, suddenly I realised there was an event being held at my favorite track!

Without a thought I canceled my original plans and soon enough I was on my way there. After 2 hours at a constant 5,500 RPMs in my silly Kei car I arrived at the Haunted Hills Race Track.

Although it was freezing cold and the fact that you could not see more than 50m in front of your face this didn’t discourage the drivers. The Toyota 86 is really gaining in popularity not only on the streets but here on the track. There were three 86’s registered to race and I was surprised to see so many, when normally you are lucky to see one at any given track day!

As soon as I laid eyes on this Honda Jazz I knew I was in for something special. With some nice subtle exterior mods and sensible light weight wheels this package looked the goods!

When there is an open top racer on a track that had a car roll only a month ago you know this guy had to be a bad arse! The Lotus Kit car was painted in an awesome British racing green complete with some gold highlights. My favorite part of this car was its sneaky air intake which was raised out of the normal shape to give it that extra gulp of air for some extra pony’s.

This is the very car that inspired me to make the trip to Haunted Hills for the day. Victor has been hard at work on his car in preparation for this event. Being victors first time at this track he made the decision to run the car with no front bar to avoid any extra damage that may occur if he was to go off the track.

After a short drivers briefing it was time to hit the track, Harley and his JZX Chaser was one of the first in line and quickly took time to talk track with the man who was organizing the dummy grid.

After being called from the dummy grid you get to the real start line and have to then wait for the remaining car on the track to get to the finish line before being allowed to go.

This slight right hand bend in front of the Evo is known as the “OH’Shit” corner, it is one of the most tricky corners on the track, why because you carry so much speed into it. This happens because of the steep incline shortly after the start line and when it is wet and the track is cold one hesitation and you go straight off the corner.

There was quite a mix of cars in attendance, this XR5 really was hitting the track hard and punishing his tyre’s as he struggled for grip in the damp conditions.

As the track slowly dried out lap times started to fall although there was no sunshine the grass was no longer covered in icy frost.

This little Corolla did more than make beautiful sounds, it was fast! Like really fast! Adrian’s KE70 really had people wondering what the hell is under the bonnet of the bronze beast.

The Corolla made it into the top three fastest cars of the day, even though this car is still a work in progress Adrian managed to scrape more and more time off his PB for this track. Not every lap was perfect and sometimes this track car was quickly transformed into a drift car.

This FG XR6 took it really easy during the early morning session but quickly got faster and more confident as the track warmed up. The Ford and Toyota chaser behaved completely different on the track. The Chaser being the larger car you would think it would be slower and more cumbersome to get around the track, Yet it was faster, flatter and and seemed to fly around the track with ease.

With some very consistent times this RX8 had mastered the track, but wasn’t managing to smash his PB by much. The rotary sounded great and you could hear that rumble echoing around the tiny valley surrounding the track.

Flying into the big hairpin at the end of the track was one way to build up a bit of extra oomph for the hill up to the finish line. But there was another way! the Nissan way, a bit of a clutch kick and you were off and up the hill!

Not everyone had a lucky day, mistakes where made and under such tricky conditions it was bound to happen, the lunch break was mainly used by people to repair and ready their cars for the next session.

After lunch a line quickly formed and the Charge Speed’s Evo X was first in line to hit the track. This Mitsubishi Evo 10 looked great and went very, very well! With plenty of exterior mods and engine mods this is one tasty package!!

This supra knocked almost ten seconds of its original time around the track getting its time into low sixties. The track was run in a clockwise configuration and this made the track a bit easier for the drivers to navigate.

Track days are such a good opportunity to practice the things you are not meant to do on the road. For instance drifting! If you have the power and the know how, why not practice a little?

One of the most imposing looking cars of the day was Victors Evo, that big time attack style spoiler and large front mount cooler really make this car sand out. The car not only looks serious it also has plenty of after market parts that help this Evo attack time.

When this Honda jazz would fly past me I kept hearing a weird sound, I thought to myself “that sounds like a supercharger” could it be? I had to take a closer look and sure enough this little jazz was packing a supercharger! The sound that it made was like a screaming angry monkey! It was scary as hell!

This was one great track day! even though it was super cold and most people watched on from the comfort and warmth of their cars, it was full of action and time slashing goodness. If you would like to know more about the (MMSC) make sure you hit these links Melton motor sports inc – MMSC Facebook page
Thanks for looking,
Grant.

Haunted Hills :: CCRMIT Christmas Break Up

Grant — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 10:45:13 +0000

It is Christmas break up time of year again and the CCRMIT club was lucky enough to score the haunted hills hill climb track for their end of year ‘come and race’ fun day. With a less than desirable weather forecast, things did not look promising.

On the drive out to the track I drove though several storms. Thinking all the rain and bad weather was behind me, I was confident that day would turn out just fine.

I had only been at the track 10 minutes when a great big cloud moved over the top of us all. Driver briefing was hurried up due to the pending rain. Someone from the crowd started a count down and yelled 30 seconds! 10 seconds! 5 seconds!

Bang! The rain hit like a crazy tropical storm and with the temperature at 35 degrees and drops of rain the size of 50 cent pieces it quickly got pretty humid. The rain didn’t stop for a good 20 minutes.

Once the rain cleared, a huge line formed as everybody wanted to get out on the track! Even though it was still really wet nobody wanted to waste a minute of precious track time.

Zac in his KE20 Corolla didn’t mind that the track was damp. He launched the car as if it were a dry day and didn’t hold back.

Many different cars were lining up to take this track on, including this Christmas modified Corolla. The mix of serious track cars and daily drives was impressive.

With an advan inspired paint job, this rare Levin was a real surprise to see on track. It was by no means the normal type of Levin you would see on the streets.

Haunted Hills is a truly beautiful track with long sweeping corners, perched on the side of a hill, this track has it all.

Out on track were a few Datsuns. This one was in great condition and I couldn’t believe how straight all of the classic cars were for being weekend track cars, they were all very impressive.

This Chrysler Lancer was thumping around the track and the boys were loving it! Not only is this car unique, it was the only car rocking the retro ‘poo brown’ colour scheme. I’m not sure if this was the 2.0 litre version but it certainly went like one.

A full rally spec Hyundai Elantra. This thing was flat out crazy with the driver entering corners at speeds that I didn’t think were possible on such a track! There was some serious skill behind the wheel.

After walking through lots of tall grass I found a spot to shoot from. It was just near a rise coming into a sweeping corner. Not 5 minutes after getting to this spot I see a Volvo coming over the hill and think to myself that he was going a little fast. Within a couple of seconds the car was on its’ side and it gently fell back down on all for wheels! I helped to push it out of the embankment and back on to the track.

Not everybody could keep their cars on the track in these challenging wet conditions, but I did see many spectacular saves that averted disaster on some hairy parts of the track.

Because Nissan! That is why there was some good drift action going on at the track that day.

Yet another clean S series Nissan running around the track. I was glad to see some of the more popular car types doing some track time rather than hard parking time.

A rally modified Stanza was cutting some clean lines around the track and always seemed in control.

After the crash, the Volvo made its’ way back to the pits. Tools were soon sourced to pull the radiator out and clean the clay blockages that had inundated the whole front of the car.

The line continued all day and the track was never empty. Some people didn’t even stop to eat lunch, taking every possible chance to get in some solid track time.

There were not many 4wd cars on track but this wrx was a great clean example of the perfect weekend track car.

There were a few rally style Hyundai Excels buzzing around the track. They are probably one of the cheapest and most fun ways to get into rallying and track events, with such cheap parts and being very easy to drive. This Ion sponsored Excel was one of the fastest and most daring of the bunch.

The best thing about the CCRMIT Christmas breakup, was the ‘come try’ aspect of racing. Some families were sharing a car between three siblings and pushing each other for faster times.

This very customized CRX had one of the best brake setups I had seen all day and the owner took good care of this car, both on and off the track.

Another standout driver of the day was Michael in his Datsun. He was linking corners and drifting with great speed and precision.

These very passionate club members live and breathe racing and rallying. From the track open to track close, not a moment was wasted. The enthusiasm and drive behind this club is very strong and I will definitely be attending more CCRMIT events in the future.
Thanks for looking,
Grant

Rob Roy Hillclimb :: VSCC Meet

Grant — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 11:50:22 +0000

Rob Roy turned on the sunshine for the vintage sports car club. This event was
surprisingly popular, the crowd was full of young and old.

With a line up of cars from 1914 to 1968 all made before i was born, it was like looking into a museum.

Some of these old cars really boogied up the hill!

That’s right the hindenburg is back, new and improved road going version! this car was super huge !

All i can say is “crazy”, an engine some scaffolding and a helmet. No actually this car started out life as a 1929 Lancia Lamba.

The Austin 7 was my favorite car of the day, small light and quick.

The youngest car of the day was also the widest car of the day, there’s nothing like and
old school wide-body alfa.

The Austin 7 was the most popular car at this event and everyone seemed to have a slightly different versions of them.

Many drivers had very serious looks on their faces as the waited inline.

Even when it was parade time, the cars still put on a show with their passengers holding on for dear life.
When i am old i hope to be racing old school cars up a hill, but judging by the crowd i will have to wait 30 years until i can participate in this event.
– Grant