Martin Dugard made speedway history when he roared to victory in the British Grand Prix at Coventry on Saturday night.

He rewrote the record books by becoming the first home rider to triumph in the event.

He is also only the second rider to win a world championship round on a wild card in 34 Grand Prix meetings and only the second British rider to win a Grand Prix anywhere in the world.

The Eastbourne Eagles' captain blew away the best riders in the world with an awesome display in front of a 10,000-plus crowd at the Brandon Stadium.

Dugard, who had never won a Grand Prix race, won five of his seven races after beginning in the qualifying event and simply got better and better.

Among his victims in both the final and semi-finals was current world championship leader Mark Loram, and earlier he twice defeated world champion Tony Rickardsson.

Dugard had only been included in the meeting as a 'spoiler' and opted to miss the official practice on Friday, preferring to help former team-mate Brent Collyer in the pits during a Young England versus Young Australia match at Oxford.

Last year, he faced a life ban after an incident in the pits at Arlington when he floored Stefan Andersson following a track crash.

It was a remarkable performance by the Sussex rider, who reached the world final in 1990 when it was staged as a one-off event and won the Overseas final three years later but had never achieved anything like this in his career.

For years, he has confessed to not being motivated by individual meetings and has concentrated on his club commitments with Eastbourne.

This season, however, he has been in superb form, leading Eagles to the brink of the Elite League championship and qualifying for the Inter-Continental final in Denmark next month.