Picture the Isle of Man having an illegitimate love child with Mount Panorama – the resulting Haunted Hills Road Course would have thrown shade on any layout, anywhere.

Rewind to 1995, and the street circuit fad was still some years from properly teeing off in V8 Supercars circles.

Yet it was at this time that the Latrobe Valley Motorsport Complex Committee was formed, with representatives of the local Gippsland Car Club joined by associates from go-karting, speedway, drag racing, aero, commerce and local council.

The project hit the specialty motorsport press in 1997 with plans for a street circuit featuring both a figurative and literal twist.

A feasibility study priced at $24,000 was completed, with the planned 5.6km layout coming in with a projected $15 million price tag.

The proposed complex was slated to include drag racing, speedway, hillclimb, karts and off-roading, with the road circuit described in Motorsport News as having “Huge hills, a ripper esses and a very fast stretch across the top.”

Fact check: all of that quote is understated.

With pit facilities planned for the eastern end of the circuit, adjacent to the Yallourn Open Cut Coal Mine on De Campo Drive, the climb was to start in earnest at the slightly obtuse left onto Coach Road.

How’s the serenity? The pits would have been at the bottom of the hill, a long way away.

A flat out left-hand sweeper would have crested the ridge, a corner which would have been lined with photographers keen to capture the panorama, as per the image above.

Saying that, the snappers would almost certainly require a courtesy bus to reach that perch – it’d be a bitch of a climb to attempt on foot.

A sweeping right would then unravel into a tight left-hand quasi-hairpin onto Bill Schultz Drive.

The ridge run would then descend into a gradually tightening series of flat knacker sweepers, before a hard stop at Haunted Hills Road.

If you’ve made it this far without wadding your machine up into a cube, congratulations, but don’t start celebrating too soon…

Picture the run down the side of Mount Panorama, crossed with your favourite Targa stage, completely lined with trees, with gravity tugging at you hard for a total of 1.3km.

If you managed that with all wheels still attached, it would be time for a 90 degree left back onto the pit straight.

Elevation, terminal velocity, pucker inducing fast corners, and an epic mountain descent.

Tick, tick, tick and a hard tick with a big fat Nikko Pen.

Keep in mind too that Gippsland is typically lush, with that lushness fuelled by constant precipitation, an ingredient that would turn a potential bad dream very quickly into Freddy Krueger actually standing at the end of your bed…

The concept, as seen in Auto Action, early 1997.

And then what…

As you may have noticed, 1997 passed without this track becoming a reality.

Talk at the time had the venue licensed for three events a year, including a long-distance V8 Supercars event in November 1998, effectively a replacement for the Sandown 500.

Requiring 11.5km of concrete barriers, sand traps and run-off area, proposed funding was to come from the private sector, with the track to become a year-round tourist attraction for the region.

In fact, Auto Action reported at the time the layout was actually used for a regularity trial on March 29, 1997.

Ultimately, it never happened, although multiple surveys took place between 1998 and 2004, including an engineering feasibility study, economic impact and job creation study, detailed site evaluation survey, concept plans and a detailed design.

Seems serious, huh?

Investigated sites included the Haunted Hills Road Course, another road race circuit at Yallourn Heights, and a nearby block on Marretts Road, Hernes Oak, a site now owned by Energy Australia, which was identified as the preferred location.

A lease was signed in 2004 for the track to accommodate the Blue Rock Motorcycle Club, and speedways for cars, bikes and juniors.

Local residents objected, with the project knocked on the head by VCAT in 2007. The end.

That was until 2012, when the council put the foot to the floor, and aggressively pursued the project… until of course Energy Australia flagged the land as no longer being made available for lease.

The advisory committee was reinvigorated in 2013, with stakeholders indicating facilities should cover speedway tracks for cars and bikes, a dirt track for lawn mower racing, plus amenities.

Despite the previous objections to the site and its lack of availability, the committee tried again to secure the Marretts Road facility, however, Energy Australia at this time noted that they essentially were otherwise occupied with a nearby open cut coal mine that was filling with water.

Councillors who had driven the concept of a complex had another crack in 2017, and took to the TV news with a proposal for a multi-purpose sports facility with a racing circuit, a stock car circuit, a speedway circuit, and perhaps a drag strip, with the former Hazelwood Coal Mine suggested as a location.

The year is now 2021, and we sit and wait.

Judging by the circle work laid down at what could have been the last corner of the Haunted Hills Road Circuit, local enthusiasts would probably take advantage of a proper race track…

The Blue Rock Motorcycle Club on the other side of the valley.

Climbing Hills

Despite the above tale dragging on for 26 years without resolve, the area does indeed feature some different motorsport facilities, with two in fact nestled within the ribbon of bitumen that would have made up the Haunted Hills Road Circuit.

Situated high above the twin-towns of Moe-Newborough sits the Blue Rock Motorcycle Club, a motocross track that had its origins in 1994, before being transformed by the end of the decade with the use of heavy machinery borrowed from Yallourn Power Station.

Just across the valley sits Bryant Park Hillclimb, a venue we profiled last year in our hit “The Aussie Circuits You May Never Have Known” feature.

A figure-eight layout of around 1,400m, the facility lends itself to multi-configurations and uses, including sprints, motorkhanas and hillclimbs, of which the venue has hosted three Australian championships.

Pundits say it’s the best hillclimb in the country, and it’s a statement hard to argue.

Complete with lock-up garages, an immense multi-level clubhouse hangs above the vista, finished off with a viewing deck and catering facilities.

The venue came into being in 2008, after the club’s previous home, the Gippsland Park Hillclimb, was swallowed into the Yallourn Open Cut, with remnants of that track still visible today adjacent to the nearby Latrobe Road.

Bryant Park may well be Victorian motorsport’s best-kept secret, all with a nod to what could have been surrounding the facility.

Epic elevation changes and scenery forever – it’s the sort of location a photographer froths over, as evidenced below.