We flash past a 30mph limit sign at well over twice that speed

We flash past a 30mph limit sign at well over twice that speed. Super-grippy race tyres have replaced the aggressive chunkies, and my task is simple Go as fast as I possibly can. I am nervous - more so when I see how the Fiat Uno in front is failing to get a grip on the slippery up-ramp that starts the stage.One minute later, it's our turn. He likes my car control, which I expect would be nearly as terrific as being told by someone of another gender that I'm good in bed More work is needed on my cornering lines, though This theme will recur.Now, about my navigator. Clive Jenkins navigates for three different rally drivers in three rally series, including last year's Ka Championship winner, Andrea Hall, in whose Escort they won the Formula Two class in this year's British Championship Clive knows the stages we're driving today Clive can call out the bends and hazards as they approach I have to believe him.It's Saturday. We're at the start of the first stage, a hilly, narrow tarmac track in Scarborough called Oliver's Mount We have to go round it twice. That doesn't sound much, but it's still half as much again as the standard Ka, with an exhaust note to match.Tutor Darren Wilcox and I are slithering round a series of loops set out among an old slagheap, and we're communicating through an intercom because there's so much noise.

But first, I had to learn how to do it.It's Friday afternoon, the day before the Trackrod. I'm at Chris Birkbeck Rallysport's rally school, to learn about loose surfaces and hone my handbrake turns. My rally Ka is ready, with its roll-cage, its stripped-out interior furnished with body-hugging seats, its reinforced and multi-adjustable suspension, its chunky-tread tyres and its 90bhp engine. All I had to do was drive, so I could relay to you what rallying is really like from behind the steering wheel. I went rallying in a Ford Ka, plucked from the Ford Racing Rally Ka Championship and entered in North Yorkshire's Trackrod Rally Beside me was a top navigator, behind me a top team. Yes, you have to be a bit special to match Colin McRae, but I have discovered that it's possible to do a stage rally and still be alive at the end. Not for me, though, a fire-spitting Mitsubishi Lancer Evo or Subaru Impreza Turbo.

How else do you describe the ability to hurtle along a narrow, loose-surfaced track, trees just feet away, far faster than most people drive on a motorway, and still get round the corners? For mortals like most of us, people who panic as soon as a wheel slithers out of one-to-one road contact, it's an activity beyond comprehension But it needn't be. By the same token, the Boxster S threatens Porsche's rear-engined 911 Carrera Cabriolet with redundancy. Why pay pounds 30,000 more for a car that's only slightly faster and less capable on the corners?. FROM TOMORROW until Tuesday, forests, moors and the grounds of stately homes will echo to the blare and scrabble of the world's top rally cars as they rocket through the Rally of Great Britain Whoever wins will possess almost other-worldly skills.