Claire Bowen makes a racing debut in France's frozen Massif Centrale.
It was eleven o'clock at night and I was scared. Sitting in the little Citroën Saxo, blipping the throttle and willing the lights to change to green, I wondered how I got into this situation.
I was just about to make my debut as a racing driver - and the track alone was enough to terrify most sane drivers. This was the final round of the Citroën Saxo Glâce Challenge, a support series to the seven-race Andros Trophy.
The trophy, which uses ski resorts rather than racing circuits, has gained enormous popularity during its 10 years and attracts top drivers from Formula One and rallying.
Races are held under floodlit conditions at night - with some in daylight hours too.
It's got to be one of the prettiest forms of motorsport with lights twinkling on the snow-covered mountainsides as fans, snug in their bright anoraks and bobble hats, gather to cheer their heroes into the early hours.
With eight others I line up on the grid ready for the floodlit, ice-covered, 800-metre twisty circuit high in France's Auvergne a little south of Clermont-Ferrand. The lights change and I sprint off the line in the 1,600 cc Saxo left hooker with its roll cage, skinny studded tyres, softened suspension, gearbox with ratios adjusted for ice and fiercely responsive brakes.
Alarmingly I realise that there is one thing I'm really good at - race starts - so I back off as the eight other challengers fight for the first corner. Just as well, too, because all my fellow competitors seem hell-bent on taking each other out.
But I give the 20,000 spectators plenty to laugh about as I produce the most ragged display of driving anyone has ever seen. Racing lines and sideways slides around corners are not for me. My challenge is just to keep the car on the track - and moving in the right direction - for the five laps which seem to go on for an eternity.
But I do it - and overtake one of the regular competitors. He has drifted into some deeper snow on a bend and gets stuck for long enough to let me get by and, in true racing style, baulk him for all of 15 seconds before he comes whizzing past.
My second race, the following afternoon, isn't without incident. Bright sunshine results in patches of tarmac being exposed and these provide the first feeling of grip on the surface I experience all weekend.
Hitting the ice, after the grippy tarmac, causes what I dreaded over the two days - my first spin. It happens in a flash and reduces me to giggles.
All I can do is stay put as a worried marshal wildly waves the yellow flag while desperately signalling for me to stay put.
He has no need to fear as I can see the other cars approaching and have no intention of doing a handbrake turn in front of them. Despite my spin - and a slight off into a snowbank - I manage to finish both my races and to my relief I'm not last in.
The weekend has been a baptism by ice but I'm a long way off the pace and skill shown by the professional Andros Trophy competitors.
For the past seven years Vauxhall's British touring car driver, Yvan Muller, has shown all the other competitors a clean pair of wheels.
In truly spectacular form he powerslides round bends sending plumes of snow skywards as he notches up victory after victory. If only I could do that.