She and Lisette Bakker, from the Netherlands, have been selected as the outright winning driver and co-driver in the joint FIA Women in Motorsport and Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) cross-country rally selection, after a five-day training camp in the Qatar desert, last week.
The women will now team up to contest the 2016 Sealine Cross-country Rally, from April 17 to 22, the third round of the FIA World Cross-country Cup.
''I'm just overwhelmed. It's been an amazing week and the experience in itself of doing something in which you have no experience, and to be driving around sand dunes, has been amazing,'' Gilmour said.
She added that while she felt fortunate to have another chance at desert racing, she knew she had to be fitter for April's rally.
''Having got stuck in the sand [last week] I was very hot and sweated a lot, so, yes, I need to be fitter, and probably if there's an opportunity to do more training, that would be great as there's nothing like experience and mileage.''
Driving in the sand dunes was a new surface for Gilmour. ''It reminded me a lot more of my motorbike trail riding than my rally driving in many ways; reading the terrain and moderating your speed for the bumpier rockier sections and then picking the best line up and over the sand dunes.''
The large SUV-style Toyota Prados and Nissan Patrols the contestants drove were a far cry from the light, nimble Suzuki Swift in which Gilmour contests the New Zealand Rally Championship.
''The vehicles we were driving weren't overly powerful which meant we needed to be smart with our lines and techniques to get up the steeper sections on the dunes.
''I really enjoyed the challenge of negotiating the dunes and the sand. Although it became very hard physical work once you got stuck, which was very easy to do,'' Gilmour said.
The focus of the inaugural training camp was on finding a female crew to contest the 2016 Sealine rally, but QMMF president Nasser Al-Attiyah announced the federation would be funding an additional two cars on the event for the second-placed crew of Molly Taylor/Yasmeen Elmajed and third-placed Cristina Gutierrez Herrero/Lara Vanneste.
The project - the brainchild of FIA Women in Motorsport Commission president Michele Mouton, the only woman to win the Dakar Rally, Jutta Kleinschmidt, and Al-Attiyah - supports and promotes the participation of women in cross-country rallying.
It received 85 applications from 39 countries and, after an initial selection, 18 drivers and co-drivers were chosen to participate in the five-day training and selection process which culminated in the announcement of the winners in Doha on November 6.
Under the guidance of Kleinschmidt and multiple rally and cross-country winning co-driver Fabrizia Pons, the women underwent intense training in the desert, covering all aspects of cross-country rallying.
