Allen dominates chaotic Townsville opener

Kai Allen has broken through for his first Super2 win in an incident-packed NTI Townsville 500 opener.

Allen, who is five years younger than the Dunlop Series itself, cruised to victory on Saturday.

The Eggleston Motorsport driver, at 18 years and 12 days, became the second youngest driver to win a Super2 race.

Alex Rullo holds the record, having won in Perth in 2018.

Allen led home Eggleston teammate Cameron Crick, who made a lightning start to slot into second off the line.

Pole man Aaron Seton came home third for Gomersall Motorsport, having lost out to both Eggleston Holdens at the start.

The race was neutralised after the first lap after Mason Kelly crashed his Nissan Altima heavily at Turn 1.

Kelly suffered broken steering from a Turn 12 clash with Chris Smerdon, who was also forced out of the race.

Allen led the field to green after a 10-minute Safety Car period, and skipped away from the field.

From there, the Mount Gambier driver was untouchable as he bolted away to a 4.4s victory.

Blanchard driver Aaron Love was first Ford home in fourth ahead of Zane Morse, with Cooper Murray making it three Eggleston cars in the top three.

Matt Chahda was classified seventh, but was penalised to the tune of five seconds over an earlier clash with Super3 driver Cameron McLeod, and was classified 10th.

It promoted Ryan Wood and Zak Best, who finished seventh and eighth after starting 18th and 19th.

Wood's Walkinshaw Andretti United teammate Zach Bates was classified ninth.

McLeod was classified 12th behind Nash Morris, who managed to avoid major incident after a Turn 2 lock-up for Lochie Dalton.

Dalton locked both front wheels and careened towards Morris, who straightened his Commodore to let the out-of-control Dalton through.

The Brad Jones Racing driver slowly brought his car to pit lane and returned to the race, albeit with old tyres on the front of the car.

Brad Vaughan, who was penalised over his qualifying clash with Jack Perkins, raced from pit lane to 13th.

Best's series lead was reduced to 36 points over Murray, with Love a further nine points down in third.

Allen jumped to fourth overall, and is just 54 points down heading into Sunday.

Super2 and Super3 drivers will return to the track at 9:15am AEST for ARMOR ALL Qualifying on Sunday.

The Dunlop Series’ 150th round will conclude with Race 2 at 1:15pm.