Cars, spinning on hard terrain, make an emergency stop (9)

'an emergency stop' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'cars spinning on hard terrain' is the wordplay.
'spinning' indicates an anagram.
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, letters appear on others).
'hard' becomes 'h' (abbreviation used in pencil classifications).
'terrain' becomes 'land' (I've seen this before).
'cars' with letters rearranged gives 'cras'.
'cras'+'h'+'land'='CRASHLAND'

'make' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?