The 18-year-old was handed his Repco Supercars Championship debut when Dick Johnson Racing fielded a wildcard in last year’s Bathurst 1000 and has now been elevated to the co-driver role on Will Davison’s #17 Ford Mustang for both enduros in 2024.
He remains in the Super2 Series with Eggleston Motorsport, though, vying for back-to-back titles after snatching the 2023 crown in the final round of the season.
DJR CEO David Noble declared when he joined the 2023/24 KTM Summer Grill that their next target for Allen is to dominate the 2024 Super2 title race, with the former AFL coach also outlining his four stages of talent development.
While Cooper Murray demonstrated at Mount Panorama that Allen may well face a challenge this year from within the Eggleston stable, nothing more could have been asked of the latter in terms of a points haul, given he won both races.
That he had to survive a one-lap dash to the finish in Race 2 impressed Noble this time, as did the fact he reclaimed the ascendancy within a lap after being beaten away from the line by fellow front row starter Jobe Stewart.
“I liked the fact that he came from second at the first corner, took the lead, then he had several restarts, which can always be a bit tricky,” Noble told Speedcafe.
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“I know the [restart] rules have changed a little bit – you can’t overlap now – but to be able to control the race, I thought, was a real positive for him.
“The guys as they come through, you want them to experience different levels of ability to make decisions, and that’s another one for him over the weekend; the ability to be calm under pressure.
“Safety Car comes off, you’ve got a one-lap dash, you’ve got to maintain your lead, and he did it.
“They’re the things that I would tend to look for in growth, in development of talent, so credit to him.”
Allen is generally thought to be a very strong chance for another DJR promotion, to a full-time seat, in 2025, by which time the current contracts of both of the incumbents will have run out.
However, the South Australian is not getting too far head of himself.
“I’ve got my own stuff to do in the first part of the year, which is good, so I’m just working tightly with Eggleston Motorsport to make sure that I’m learning as much as I can throughout the rest of the year,” he said when asked by Speedcafe if he thought his performance would have impressed DJR.
“Hopefully I impressed them and it’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the year holds.”
Super2 is currently in a long break before Round 2 at Wanneroo as part of the Perth SuperSprint weekend, on May 17-19.
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