Mount Gambier’s Kai Allen celebrated a career first on the weekend at the 025 ITM Taupo Super 440 in New Zealand for Round 3 of the Repco Supercars 2025 Season.
The Penrite Racing driver competed in his first Top 10 Shootout on Sunday for Race 10 after finishing eighth in the Race 10 qualifying session.
The Top 10 Shootout is a one-lap dash where the top 10 drivers from the previous qualifying stage enjoy the entire track to themselves to determine the final pole position for the race.
Allen was able to put a tidy lap together and jump up one spot to qualify seventh in the Top 10 Shootout, but unfortunately spun out at turn one which dropped him down the order to finish 18th.
“(I) got my first shootout so was super happy with that,” he said.
“Just a bit unfortunate, the day went from positive to not so positive.
“Obviously got turned around at the start at the last race but we had mega speed, had probably the second fastest lap in the race so really happy with that side of things.
“Something I really need to work on is my qualifying performance and I think I had a big box ticked (last) weekend. I think the car had a lot of speed.”
The young gun recorded his best Supercars placing to date with a seventh place finish in Race 8, jumping 15 places after qualifying 22nd.
“I had a bit of a stuff up in qualifying, started 22nd and the team did an unbelievable job with the strategy, had an early race safety car and managed it all the way to the end, to end up seventh,” he said.
Allen qualified eighth for Race 9 and converted that into a 10th place finish.
“I started at eighth for the second race, had a really good start but got shuffled wide on the first lap and did not quite go our way, so ended up 14th coming for the pit stop and like Matty (Payne) said our cars were super speedy,” he said.
“We converted that, passed some cars at the end and ended up 10th, so two Top 10 finishes, could not be happier.”
After the weekend’s results, Allen has moved up three spots and now ranks 16th in the Repco Supercars Championship standings, pushing forward towards a Top 10 position when the Supercars Finals kick off on the city streets of Surfers Paradise.
“We’re going forwards which is the main thing, so just stoked for the team now,” Allen said.
“They have put a massive amount of work to get the cars over here to New Zealand,” he said.
“We have all been working really hard behind the scenes so shout out to them, all the hard work is finally starting to pay off.”
Meanwhile, it was an amazing weekend for Allen’s teammate Matthew Payne who won Race 8 and Race 10 on home soil to secure the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, claimed a pole position and sits third in the championship standings.
Allen will now compete at the 2025 Snowy River Caravans Tasmania Super 440 from May 9-11 at the Symmons Plains Raceway in Launceston, Tasmania.
