A MAN who lost his sight more than 30 years ago set a new world blind land speed record yesterday.

Mike Newman drove a BMW M5 at an average speed of 167.32mph over a measured mile on the runway at Elvington Airfield, in York. He reached a top speed of 178.5mph.

The previous world record, also held by Mr Newman, was 144.7mph.

He is part of the Speed of Sight team, which raises funds for Vision 2020, a charity aiming to rid the world of preventable and curable blindness by the year 2020.

Yesterday's attempt was timed to coincide with World Sight Day, which takes place tomorrow.

Mr Newman said: "Every five seconds someone in our world goes blind. Every minute a child goes blind - 80 per cent of which is avoidable."

The 44-year-old from Sale, Greater Manchester, had been hoping to break the 200mph barrier in the BMW, a one-off model capable of a top speed of 205mph, but ran out of track.

Speed of Sight team director, John Galloway said: "We only got the car on Monday and it was then that we realised we didn't have a long enough location for him to go up to 205mph."

However, he said the whole team was delighted that Mr Newman had set a new world record.

He added: "It has been an emotional, remarkable and stressful day."

Mr Newman was born with glaucoma and lost his sight completely by the age of 11.

He set the previous record of 144.7mph in a Jaguar XJ-R in August 2003.