Allen snatches Bathurst Super2 finale after Best penalty

KAI Allen took a last-gasp victory in the final race of the Bathurst Dunlop Series round after a jump-start penalty for points leader Zak Best.

Fuel saving was the unseen element that dictated how the race played out, and set up a dramatic series of events in the final laps.

Only 23 cars faced the starter for the final race of the weekend, with Aaron Love and Ryan Gilroy both ruled out by crashes and Jack Perkins withdrawing after the Erebus crew were unable to diagnose the reason behind its poor handling.

The start proved dramatic for the cars on the inside of the first three rows of the grid.

Best made his second lightning getaway from pole in as many days, but this time did so before the lights went out. Within a couple of laps, stewards handed Best a five-second time penalty.

In contrast, the two cars that started behind him went nowhere. Wood and Vaughan both bobbled; the former eventually got away outside the top 10, while the latter resumed at the tail of the field after nearly being cleaned up by James Masterton.

All that left Best in the lead on the road, with Morse the effective leader after beating a slow-starting Allen to the first corner.

Wood made a series of daring moves as he fought to regain ground, passing Cooper Murray for sixth at the kink approaching the Cutting, then slicing past Nash Morris at Forrest’s Elbow for fifth.

That was as far as Wood got, however, with teammate Zach Bates several seconds up the road in fourth place.

Meantime, Morris had slapped the wall at Reid Park while fending off Wood, and soon headed to the pits and retirement after reporting a vibration.

The race settled down throughout the middle stages, before the drama ratcheted up again in the closing stages.

Best had been saving fuel throughout the race and was unable to use his raw pace to increase his lead, while race engineer Brendan Hogan only advised him of his penalty with a handful of laps to go.

Morse, circulating three seconds behind Best, looked poised hang on and claim his first Super2 race win until the magenta Mustang slowed on the run down Conrod Straight on lap 16, heading straight to the pits to retire.

That gave Best a five-plus second lead over Allen, only for Best to lose over two seconds on the penultimate lap as he frantically tried to save more fuel.

Best clawed back 0.7s of that on the final tour, but fell short of overcoming his penalty by just under a second.

That handed Allen the second race win of his Super2 career and allowed him to bring his championship deficit down to 30 points behind Best, who finished second by 0.5s from Bates.

Wood claimed fourth from Murray, with Jay Hanson, Aaron Cameron, Lochie Dalton and Matt Chahda next, while Brad Vaughan charged back to 10^th after his problem at the start.

Cameron McLeod claimed Super3 honours with 11^th place ahead of third-tier points leader Jobe Stewart.

The Dunlop Series has one round remaining at the Adelaide 500 in November.

RESULTS: Race 2, Bathurst Dunlop Series

V8 Sleuth’s ongoing coverage of the Dunlop Series for Super2 and Super3 is proudly presented by Biante – Fuel your passion with winning model cars. Visit Biante here to check out their range of model cars in a range of scales from 1:64 to 1:10.