THREE motor sports photographers had a lucky escape on Sunday after a race car crashed over a tyre wall into the spot where they were standing just minutes earlier.

Snappers Roger Barker, 57, of Trowbridge and husband and wife Nigel and Julie Eddleston-Dike, both 52, from Nettleton, near Chippenham, were behind the tyre wall near the chicane at Thruxton race track on Sunday.

Luckily for them they decided to move around the track just minutes before Formula BMW driver Joe Osborne lost control on the 10th lap, slamming into a tyre wall and launching over into the safety fence.

The 16-year-old driver was doing more than 130 mph when he clipped another car, hit the tyre wall, and launched 15 feet into the air.

He hit the barrier so hard his helmet made a dent in it, but Osborne walked away unhurt.

The crowd cheered as he stepped out from his BMW Formula race car and waved. He was airlifted to Southampton Hospital, kept in overnight for observation but released the next day.

The incident left the local trio wondering what could have happened if they had stayed put.

Nigel Eddleston-Dike, who captured the sequence on his camera from further around the track, said it was a freak accident.

He said: "In all my years I have never seen a car launch itself over the tyre wall.

In order to get good action shots we often have go in front of the catch fencing from the guidance of the race marshals and if a car does go out of control it usually shunts in the tyre wall and comes to rest.

"But this incident was so different and quite frightening when you realise you were standing in the spot the car came down in."

For Roger Barker it was a near miss he said he would never forget.

"I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. The car hit the wall and seemed to leap up into the air," he said.

"It took only second but it seemed to be all in slow motion as I watched it happen."

The BMW Formula driver Joe Osborne said: "I must have been knocked out because I cannot really remember too much about it. I felt shocked but unhurt"

The teenager, who won the Junior Kart championship last year, is on a year-long £35,000 scholarship with BMW and hopes to break into Formula Three next year a stepping stone for Formula One.