For the crew of the car seeded number 87, Sky Sports presenter Tony Jardine and myself, the Wales Rally GB ended in personal jubilation.

Not only did we cope with everything Britain's toughest motor sport event could throw at us - rain, sleet, snow, freezing fog and black ice - but finishing 36th overall and second in our class on a world championship round were results beyond our wildest dreams.

For the crew of car number 86, the Turkish pairing of Koray Muratoglu and Caglar Suren running immediately in front of us, there were no heady celebrations on Sunday evening.

Instead, they lay in hospital beds recovering from serious multiple injuries sustained in an horrific crash.

The difference between triumph and tragedy was that close.

Before swapping the press bench for a seat at the heart of the action, I had come to fully understand and appreciate that you don't play at competing at the highest level in international motor sport.

The cars are fast; our Castrol/Evening Standard Ford Fiesta being capable of racing at nearly 100mph along pot-holed narrow tracks, winding through forests or plunging into quarries where unyielding rocks lay in wait.

At this time of the year it was also inevitable that conditions on a rally route taking in the roughest terrain mid and south Wales had to offer were going to be testing in the extreme.

Yet the chilling sight of the Turk's wrecked Fiesta, identical to our own car, with it's roof and stout roll-cage having been cut away to facilitate the release of it's wounded occupants, still came as a reality check.

Tony, driving for the 15th time on Britain's round of the world rally championship, is no stranger to high-speed accidents. Just last November the 56-year-old Londoner rolled his Fiesta after clipping a rock on the Epynt military range in Breconshire.

That knowledge put me on my guard, but competing in three one-day national rallies in order to prove my competence as a co-driver offered at least a taste of what to expect.

When the big day arrived, however, I was still taken aback by the sheer unrelenting grind of being belted into an unpadded competition seat for up to 12 hours on each of the three legs of the rally and trying to stay focused.

Problems and distractions came at us thick and fast from the moment we headed out of Swansea at the crack of dawn on Friday. Atrocious weather caused the organisers to cancel two of the morning's three stages and drastically shorten the third.

The weather was kinder on Saturday, but our rally nearly ended at a petrol halt where the engine refused to restart. There was no obvious fault so an urgent mobile phone call was put through to our ProSpeed Motorsport team waiting back in Swansea.

While they considered possible remedies Tony lost his cool and became so frustrated, as precious time ticked away, that he started jumping up and down and shouting in imitation of John Cleese castigating his own recalcitrant car in a famous episode of Fawlty Towers.

We laughed about it later once we got motoring again - the team suggested checking that one particular wire had not come loose, which indeed it had - but the incident served as another reminder of the fickle nature of our task.

Come Sunday's final leg we were presented with a dilemma. Right from the word go, Tony had stressed our priority was simply to make the finish. However, after a great run through Saturday evening we had closed to within three seconds of another Turkish crew, International Ford Fiesta Trophy winners Emre Yurdakul and Can Erkal, who were lying second in our class.

A class win was out of the question, the rising star that is British teenager Tom Cave had already got that sewn up. But the temptation to take on the young Turks was too strong to resist.

This was what I had wanted all along, to feel what it was like to be a real sportsman going head-to-head against quality opposition with glory up for grabs.

Over the final four stages we succeeded in catching and overtaking our target. Two rank amateurs with a combined age of 111 had beaten established rallying talent and when we crossed the finishing line in Cardiff it was difficult to contain our emotions.

My thanks to Tony and the ProSpeed Motorsport team of Olly Marshall, Johnny Wareing and Andy Beale, and to the 4,000 volunteers who made the running of the Wales Rally GB possible.

* For more information on how to get involved in rallying and motor racing, go to www.gomotorsport.net