It's all a part of the adventure at the Dakar Rally (January 3 to 17), the world's biggest, toughest and longest race across the desert.

And for Bruce Garland, it was the pinnacle of his motor sport life.

The rally took the Maraylya resident from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso in Chile and back, via the Andes Mountains and the Atacama Desert the driest place on earth.

He and teammate Harry Suzuki brought their Isuzu D-MAX ute into ninth place on the 14th and final stage of the event, to put them in 11th outright and first diesel ute home.

``We actually were hoping to get into the top 10 but we were thrilled to have finished in 11th place,'' Garland said. ``When we finished, it was sheer relief. Each day is so hectic, you drive all day and your body hurts like hell so it was a very emotional finish. This is something we've been dreaming to do for 20 years [Garland hasn't raced in the Dakar for 10 years and he failed to finish] and it took a year to prepare for it. We've done it and it's a huge achievement.

``I think less than 10per cent of the cars did the entire course and ours was one of them, so we're really, really proud of that.''

Garland and his team built two cars for the rally in Garland's home workshop. The other was driven by Swedish teammates Pelle Wallentheim and Olle Ohlsson, who finished 44th outright.

The Dakar Rally, which is an off-road race open to motorbikes, quad bikes, cars and trucks, has been staged in Africa since 1978.

It was cancelled last year because of terrorists attacks in the area and, as a result, the rally was moved to South America.

The new event was originally planned to be one of the longest Dakars but of the 9500kilometres total distance just over 1200km had to be scrapped for safety reasons.

Right now Garland isn't thinking of another Dakar. His main concern is going camping with his family, to relax. But who knows what the future holds.