My hands gripped the steering wheel as the corner approached.
It curved away in a long sweeping left-hand bend.
I shot a quick look at the speedometer - the BMW had carried a lot of pace through the straight and while I felt my speed was safe, I couldn't help thinking I needed to slow down.
I braked and checked the speedo.
We were "only" doing 30kmh.
It felt like the car was crawling towards the snow-covered mountains across the valley.
The others were far behind me.
I felt the rush come on and gave the throttle a good nudge as we began the long easy turn left.
As the rear-wheel-drive tyres slipped on the icy surface, I eased off on the accelerator.
Trying to maintain the turn and my speed, I willed the car around the corner, but the rear tyres began to slide away from me.
The brakes were no use now and everything slowed down.
The car went into an uncontrollable spin and we slid, inexorably across the ice, around and around.
The mountains outside the car blurred as ice flakes and snow, spun by the free-wheeling tyres, clouded the view through the windscreen.
Momentum was the master now.
The ice had snatched control away and as the split second dragged on and on, the spin continued and we rushed towards an inevitable consequence.
Conditions were perfect for learning how to drive on ice that morning.
About 10cm of snow had coated Cardrona Valley overnight and the grit trucks had been out early.
Chains were needed to make it over the Crown Range to Queenstown; snow lined the road, frost and ice coated its surface.
I was running late for my 9am appointment at the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground, 1500m high above the valley, on the snow-covered slopes of the Pisa Range.
I needed to step on it.
Winter driving conditions take a huge toll on unprepared motorists driving the region's treacherous roads.
The Cardrona Valley road alone claims many accident victims.
Motorists fall prey to the shaded, black-ice coated surfaces typified by the notoriously crash-prone spot known as The Larches.
The consequences of losing control on an icy road can be fatal.
As I'm soon about to learn when driving on ice, control is the key.
Back in the BMW I was cursing, while my co-driver laughed: "You'll get it next time," he told me.
Easy for him to say.
My co-driver Grant Aitken is a two-time former winner of the Rally of Asia.
He used to run the Race to the Sky hillclimb, which ran for a decade up the Pisa Range access road and now he works as a professional driver, his skills in demand by film production companies for car commercials.
You could say he knows how to handle himself behind the wheel.
It was the fifth time I'd tried to negotiate the "J" turn on our custom-prepared racing ice track at the specialist winter vehicle testing operation the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground.
I'd managed to spin out on this turn every time, despite "crawling" around at what I thought was a relatively sedate 35kmh.
Admittedly, I'd ignored the advice of our instructor - US test driver Hunter Edwards, who had said to try to get round the bend at a speed of 20kmh - and the consequence was inevitable.
Yep, you guessed it - I'd sustained a "massive" injury while crashing.
The Beamer may have been dent-free, but my pride hurt like hell.
Six of us made it up the treacherous snow and ice-covered Pisa Range access road to the SHPG that morning.
The irony was not lost on any of us that the ice-driving skills we were there to learn would have come in handy during our trip up the mountain.
Built in 1991 by Cardrona Valley alpine tycoon John Lee -he sold it in 2005 - the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground is a $20 million operation which specifically caters for the world's premier vehicle and tyre manufacturers.
A highly secretive set-up, the SHPG provides the predominantly northern hemisphere-based car and tyre-manufacturing clients with an off-season winter facility where they can test their new products on a variety of icy snow-covered race tracks and road surfaces.
We were warned about the guarded confidentiality the manufacturers expect and told not to take any photos of other cars, buildings, or people.
We were taken to a classroom, which sits near a specially prepared racetrack on ice.
The course is laid out in orange cones on a massive outdoor ice rink, which must be an area equivalent to about six rugby fields.
This is where the fun takes place.
After a short classroom lesson, we were trackside.
There were three vehicles to choose from - all 2007 models and outfitted with different tyre set-ups.
A rear-wheel-drive four-cylinder BMW 320 diesel with all-season tyres, is the car we were told would be used to record our time trial and lap times.
We also had a four-cylinder, front-wheel drive Audi A3 FSI, petrol, kitted with snow tyres and a four-cylinder front-wheel drive petrol-powered Volkswagen Golf, with a mixed tyre set-up of snow tyres on the front and all-season tyres at the rear.
The morning raced by.
We were taken through straight-line brakings on uphill and downhill ice-covered slopes in the Audi and VW.
The difference in control and braking ability is remarkable and characterised by the different tyre set-ups.
The Audi and its four snow tyres allow one to stop quickly, while the VW and its rear all-season tyres leave the car struggling for traction on the ice and skating past the braking targets on downhill runs.
The exercise is designed to help us with our first-up time trials around the ice-track lap course in the BMW.
During my first five timed laps, I surprised myself and managed to make it around without spinning the BMW out once, although as I fang around the course, the rear of the car swings from side to side as I struggle with the rear-wheel drive.
The morning raced by.
Everyone's competitive fires were stoked by our five lap time trials, then we had a go at negotiating the sweeping J-turn in the various cars.
The difference in control between them was huge.
The Audi and its four custom-made snow tyres gripped the ice track the best.
The BMW and its rear-wheel-drive all-season tyres was a distant second, while the front-wheel drive VW Golf and its ordinary rear-wheel tyres was all over the place.
It took very little speed at all for the back of the car to slide into an out-of-control spin.
Back in the classroom, Edwards talked about the differences tyres make to a car's handling and performance.
"While the tyres may provide you with the grip you need to successfully negotiate your turns, speed is your number one enemy," he said.
It didn't sound logical, but he explained how our ice-track lap times would be faster the slower we went.
Decreasing speed on ice allows your tyres to grip surfaces better, engage more traction, and thus you can hold a more consistent speed around the course.
The moment you go "too" fast, your tyres lose grip and this is where time, and more importantly control, is lost, he says.
The "too" fast line, however, is a fine one, invariably crossed by motorists on the open road when it's too late to learn the lesson.
Ultimately, our day learning how to ice-drive was about finding where the fine line of control sits.
In a controlled ice-track environment you have the time and space to push the limits of cars without the the down side of bad consequences.
The fun is about figuring out where the line of control is crossed and how far you can push it, Edwards says.
Driving on ice is not too hard to master.
Speed is the key to control, but the best part of travelling the learning curve of ice-driving is by breaking it.
While Aitken recorded the fastest times of the day as he powered the BMW around the iced corners in a controlled drift, he also came to grief in the same manner as I did and spun out while pushing the boundaries of controllable speed.
The key to control is also about learning where and how to adjust your speed and direction, when you come close to losing control.
The slight changes to one's speed, and also how you're steering, allow the car and its tyres to regain their grip on the road and bring you out of trouble.
Braking when turning causes a car to spin out.
On ice, it's best to brake on your straight line approach, bleed your speed off and go into the turn at a slower pace.
Our kicks on the racetrack came from pushing the car's limits to "train" ourselves how to recognise we were crossing that thin line of control and then trying to bring it back under control before spinning out.
It was a barrel of fun and excitement, as all of us spun out the different vehicles while racing to record the fastest lap times.
All the time we were pushing the cars as fast as we could, trying to maintain control, sometimes losing and sometimes winning the battle against momentum.
It's a luxury one doesn't necessarily have on the open road.
