Mount Gambier’s Kai Allen has made a massive impression in the Australian Motorsport world this year by dominating the 2022 Super3 Series.

But if the teenager is to seal the championship, he must overcome arch rival Brad Vaughan in a tense title showdown which ignites at the greatest stage of all this weekend, Bathurst.

With only two rounds to go, Allen leads Vaughan by 54 points, but the championship is far from certain as the series heads to two of the most challenging tracks in the country.

Allen already knows how much the mountain can bite after last year when mechanical issues and even a fire held him back from finishing strongly in the Toyota 86 Series.

Allen said he is bracing himself for a tight fight to the final lap in Adelaide and knows how delicate his lead could be.

“It does not take much in this class to have a big chunk taken out of your championship, so it is going to be challenging,” he said.

“But I am excited to go to Bathurst because I have been watching it all my life and did not have a good run last year, but that is motorsport.

“I will do as much preparation as I can, so I can just go out there, have fun and race.

“I am pretty excited to blast a Supercar across the top of the mountain which will be pretty surreal.”

While Allen is the favourite to impressively secure the Super3 crown in his debut season, he is not thinking about it just yet, especially after his lead received a small trim at the latest round in Sandown.

It all looked to be on track early as Allen dominated the opening two sessions of the weekend.

The Blue Lake teen driving an ex Jamie Whincup Holden VE Commodore then carried this momentum into qualifying, where he set a new record for the most pole positions in a single season in the category.

Allen said it was a thrill to be speeding around one of the most famous tracks in the country and secure another pole, highlighting the challenge of getting the Dunlop tyres in the right window.

“The track is pretty cool and I absolutely loved it,” he said.

“We had a couple of test days leading up which really helped us.

“Qualifying was exciting being half wet, half dry, so it was a battle of who would be the bravest.

“I did not realise I was equal with the most amount of poles, so it was pretty cool to hear, but this is a learning year and these things are just a bonus.

“I am just trying to get as much information as I can because the Dunlop hard tyres take a while (to warm up) especially because it was such a cold track.

“Normally we have an out lap, warm up lap and a push lap, but this time we had to go straight into it and in the first two sectors the tyre was still coming up to temperature.

“So I had to give it everything in the last sector and we ended up getting pole which was awesome.

“But I am still learning so much about the tyre and maximise the braking markers.”

The opening race on Saturday was a wild affair littered with many incidents up and down the field.

Allen just tried to “stay out of trouble” on his way to a commanding win, where he left Vaughan for dust.

Not only did he win the Super3 race, but he also recorded an impressive seventh outright finish with the faster Super2 cars.

When Sunday arrived, another successful day looked to be on the cards when Allen claimed another pole position after a shootout with Vaughan.

The Eggleston Motorsport driver then put himself in the box seat, converting his pole into a promising early lead.

Across the first 17 laps which were affected by some incidents, Allen had protected his lead by moving up five places in the combined field.

But straight after the restart, disaster struck with a rare sighting of Allen flying off the tarmac.

After out-braking himself, the youngster managed to skate his car through the infield but was lucky to survive as the race finished with a huge crash at turn 3 where the road was nearly blocked with cars and mud all over the track.

The mistake meant Allen not only relinquished the lead to title rival Vaughan, but finished down the order in 22nd place, sacrificing valuable points in the process.

While it was a rare and costly mistake, Allen knows what went wrong and said it was all part of the learning curve as he prepares for Bathurst.

“After the late-race safety car it was just carnage and I made a driving error,” he said.

“I locked the rear brakes and did not push the gear shifter hard enough, so when you are a between a gear, I had no engine braking and it just locked up.

“I went straight off, sideways into the mud, so all he paddock practice I did back in the day came in handy.

“It was pretty scary but I managed to get through it all.

“I went to the workshop the next day and looked at all the data and I saw I did not push enough ‘G’ on the downshift with the old style gearboxes.

“But it is always good to learn from the mistakes and move on.

“It has been a good year so far. We will keep chipping away and not let too much get to my head.

“I am just grateful for all of the opportunities that have come along.”