The fairytale story testing faith in Finals Series

Few, if any, would have picked the 20-year-old rookie to be one of the four set to battle it out for the title at the Adelaide Grand Final.

He was 17th in points at the halfway mark of the regular season and only just scraped into the Finals courtesy of Broc Feeney’s last lap pass at Bathurst that denied Andre Heimgartner.

It was expected Allen would fall at the first hurdle on the Gold Coast. Instead, two of the in-form and fancied Ford flyers, Brodie Kostecki and Ryan Wood, came unstuck.

And then again at Sandown, Allen should have been eliminated, only for Bathurst-winning teammate Matt Payne’s misguided aggression to once again open the door.

Allen is very much the underdog in the Adelaide decider, or as team boss David Cauchi puts it – the dark horse.

But with his rate of improvement through the season, the Grove team’s proven strategic nous and previous form on the street circuit, do not count him out.

Matt Payne downfall shows ‘flaw’ in Finals Series system

Allen knows how to win a title in Adelaide, doing so in the Super2 Series in 2023. And he carries the experience of driving in the main race last year as a substitute for Richie Stanaway.

So, if Allen can rise again and take the title in front of a home state crowd that will include plenty of friends and family from his native Mount Gambier, it will well and truly complete the fairytale.

But it may also prove a nightmare result for Supercars, which has already risked alienating rusted-on fans with its Finals Series experiment.

Allen, after all, is yet to win a Supercars race and, under the old format, would enter Adelaide eighth in the standings – a whopping 1153 points behind Broc Feeney.

Feeney’s 13-win, 16-pole season is of course being used to argue both for and against the Finals.

Based on points alone, Feeney would enter Adelaide 286 clear of nearest and only mathematical rival Matt Payne – a slam dunk to clinch the title in the Friday sprint race.

The rightful champion by any traditional measure? Absolutely. The recipe for an entertaining finale? Not so much.

Feeney has spent much of the year diplomatically answering questions about the legitimacy of the Finals Series and its fairness.

And to his credit, he’s the first to point out Allen has earned his way through under the system that’s in place.

“He hasn’t been the fastest guy week in, week out, but he’s done a great job to be qualifying up the front and he’s staying out of trouble,” said Feeney of Allen.

“Probably not many would have picked him to be in the final four. Congrats to him, to be honest, congrats to the Groves on taking… I don’t even think it’s a punt, on him.

“He got passed up last year and he’s come out and made the final four. I think it’s awesome the young kids are going so well.”

For his part, Allen says Feeney is “probably kicking himself with the new format”, underlining himself as a real threat to snatch an unlikely title.

“That’s just the way the new format is, we’ve got to understand that,” he said.

“I think I’ve understood that really well, it’s not about winning every race and not trying to win on Saturday to get through the next round like everyone thinks.

“It’s about chipping away and doing the best with what you can. We’ve seen some guys that have a different mentality to me who’ve been knocked out pretty early.

“I think it’s been really cool to see that the team are really behind me, making sure that I’m in the right mental space in the race and giving me updates and I can do my job on track.”

If Allen does rise again and take the title this weekend, he too will be a rightful champion, having made the most of the system in front of him.

And if he does do the unthinkable, Feeney at least wants a slice of the credit.

“Well, he can thank me, actually,” said Feeney, “because I was on the one who got him through to the Finals on the last lap of Bathurst!”

No matter who wins, the bottom line is the Finals Series will make the Adelaide action – and reaction – well and truly worth watching.

Championship standings based on traditional points accumulation format