Supercar driver blames ‘playful’ steering for crash
THE driver of a Mclaren supercar, reduced to a twisted wreckage when it crashed on a country road and burst into flames, claims he had swerved to avoid an animal in the road.
Lee Mcclurg, 34, was driving himself and his partner, Alex Bedford, 27, to the Goodwood Festival of Speed when the orange Mclaren 570S, which cost £168,000, hit a house and telegraph pole just three miles from their home near Trowbridge, Wilts, early on Sunday. Images released by the fire service showed the blackened remains of the sports car buried beneath a collapsed brick wall.
Both Mr Mcclurg and Mr Bedford walked away from the crash with little more than cuts and bruises but said they feared they were going to “burn alive” inside the car they had owned for just five weeks.
Mr Mcclurg, a plumbing and heating engineer, said they watched the car burst into flames just minutes after they were pulled free.
He insisted he had been driving at the 60mph limit and suggested the car’s “playful” steering was partially responsible for the incident. “We’d deliberately got on the road very early, about quarter to six in the morning, to avoid the manic traffic heading to Goodwood,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Unfortunately, at that time in the morning, there’s still lots of wildlife about, and we were driving down a stretch of road with woodland either side of it.
“There was a big animal that suddenly darted out in front of me – a deer or a badger or something – and I swerved to avoid it.
“I was trying to protect the animal but also to avoid any damage to my car.”
Mr Mcclurg said he had only purchased the vehicle last month and despite his love of cars, it was due to be his first time at Goodwood.
He added: “The steering on these cars is manufactured to be quite playful, so I was only doing about 60mph, but it only takes a little bit of steering to really make it go.”