Nicki Pedersen suffered a nightmare return to Wolverhampton last night as Eastbourne Eagles crashed to a costly Elite League defeat.

The on-loan Grand Prix speedway star, who is currently top of the world championship rankings, failed to win a race in six attempts against the team who hold his registration.

Pedersen's catalogue of mishaps included a last place and two exclusions for unfair riding, both incidents involving Peter Karlsson.

Eastbourne were beaten 53-37, losing the bonus point as well as the match, and are now five points behind Wolves, their rivals for a play-off place, who also have a match in hand.

Eagles had no answer to the Karlsson brothers, who 48 hours earlier had starred for Sweden as they won the World Cup.

Both recorded paid maximums, Mikael Max from six rides and Peter Karlsson from five.

Simon Stead, who Eastbourne allowed to move to Wolverhampton earlier in the season, also hit the visitors hard with a paid 13 points from reserve.

Joonas Kylmakorpi matched that performance for the visitors. The difference was he did not have any guns blazing in front of him.

Wolverhampton: Mikael Max Karlsson 16, Peter Karlsson 14, Simon Stead 12, Adam Skornicki 7, Sam Ermolenko 2, Chris Neath 2.

Eastbourne: Joonas Kylmakorpi 12, Dean Barker 9, David Norris 6, Nicki Pedersen 6, Adam Shields 3, Glenn Cunningham 1.