The sky's the limit for Joonas Kylmakorpi after last night's stunning show in front of the TV cameras at Arlington Stadium.

The Flying Finn produced the best performance of his British racing career to spark Eastbourne Eagles to victory over Elite League rivals Wolverhampton.

Kylmakorpi roared to four wins on the bounce and finished with a career high of 15 points as the Sussex outfit won 51-39.

It was the third successive match in which he had topped the Eagles' score-chart, taking his tally of points in the process to 37.

It has been an amazing turnaround for 21-year-old Kylmakorpi, who has struggled for most of the season to make an impact at the top level.

Eastbourne boss Jon Cook has always kept faith in the Finn, however, describing him in last night's programme notes as "a gilt-edged prospect."

Ironically, Cook added: "Joonas has yet to conquer Arlington."

Last night, Kylmakorpi came, saw and conquered, and there was nothing the opposition could do to stop him.

Second in his first race, he began his winning streak in heat eight with a thrilling victory from behind over Krzysztof Jablonski, storming past the Pole on the outside.

Kylmakorpi then set the stadium alight with a hat-trick of wins inside four races just when Eastbourne looked as though they might toss the match away.

Eight points up after six races against a patched-up Wolves side, they were surprisingly pegged back to 30-30 with two-thirds of the match gone.

Then Kylmakorpi took charge, storming to victory in heat 11 over Grand Prix star Brian Andersen to prevent the visitors taking the lead after skipper Martin Dugard had lost a chain.

The next race saw Kylmakorpi in action again, this time leading team-mate David Norris to a crucial 5-1 over Steve Johnston.

And two races later, he beat Aussie star Johnston in a head-to-head to make sure the Elite League points went to Eastbourne.

After that, Eagles just had to put Kylmakorpi in the nominated riders' finale.

Third place behind Carl Stonehewer and Andersen completed a spectacular night for Kylmakorpi.

But who knows what might have happened if referee Chris Gay had not put on the red lights after the race had started the first time.

It marred what promised to be the best race of the night with Stonehewer, Andersen, Kylmakorpi and Jesper Jensen all in a line as they tore down the back straight.

Kylmakorpi's heroics, and a brilliant contribution from Stonehewer, who also won four races en route to a 14-point return, disguised the shortcomings in the rest of the Eastbourne showing.

The truth is that for most of the match Eagles made terribly hard work of taming a Wolves team without Mikael Karlsson, Sam Ermolenko and Paul Hurry.

New boys Toni Svab and Roman Povazhny never got going.

Svab scored a couple of third places, beating only the Wolverhampton reserves, while Povazhny managed only one point after hitting the fence on his first outing.

When it came to the crunch, however, it was two excellent pieces of team riding which sunk the Wolves.

The superb effort by Kylmakorpi and Norris in heat 12 was followed in the next race by a marvellous double act from Stonehewer and Dugard which settled the match all bar the shouting.

Record scorer Dugard marked his 450th appearance for the club by going past Johnston in typical fashion in heat seven.

Kylmakorpi apart, the star performer was Stonehewer, who, despite breaking into the Great Britain World Cup team and getting a place in the world championship Grand Prix, still plies his trade with second division team Workington.

Stonehewer set Eagles on their way by winning the opener, then combined with Brent Werner for a 5-1, teamed up with Dugard for another maximum and finally beat Andersen to set the seal on the night.

His only defeat came at the hands of Johnston in heat ten, and he was not far off winning that one as well after having to come right from the back.

Eastbourne looked well set for a convincing victory when they led 15-9 after four heats and 22-14 with six gone.

Jensen's win over Dugard stemmed the tide, and when Andersen and Jensen posted a 5-1 in heat nine despite a battling ride from Norris things took on a different slant.

When Stonehewer could only split Johnston and Jensen, it was all square, but Eastbourne had one ace up their sleeve in the form of Kylmakorpi.