'Would have been race over': Newly released footage shows 250km/h near miss for Kai Allen and kangaroo
Kai Allen had a bizarre near miss incident in his first Bathurst 1000 with a rogue kangaroo that jumped in front of the Penrite driver as he flew down Conrod Straight.
Although missed in the race broadcast, vision shows the two narrowly avoiding each other during the closing stages as Allen was driving nearly 250km/h.
A collision at that speed with a kangaroo would have been catastrophic for the 20-year-old's race.
READ MORE: 'Ringing up every team': Horner closing on shock F1 return
READ MORE: AI judges in boxing? Jake Paul fight to break new ground
READ MORE: NRL coaching great plants seed for $5m All Blacks plot
The kangaroo jumped out in front of Allen's car driving nearly 250km/h. Supercars
"Gee, what a race," a shocked Allen said on the Supercars broadcast post-race.
"I had a bit of a target on my back today, the car is absolutely destroyed, but we just didn't give up, kept fighting.
"The only thing that I didn't hit was a little kangaroo that blew straight past the front of my car at 250 down Conrod, and I just missed it.
"I owe him a beer, otherwise it would've been race over."
A kangaroo narrowly avoided being hit by Kai Allen's car on Conrod Straight. Supercars
Allen finished the race with his co-driver Dale Wood in eighth, which punched him a ticket into the inaugural Supercars finals.
His teammate Matt Payne lifted the Peter Brock Trophy alongside Garth Tander in a race for the ages that was dominated by wet weather.
"It was obviously pretty full on, a dry start, it looked unreal, the weather this morning," he added.
"If you'd have said it would have rained towards the end of the day, you would've said absolutely no.
"A lot of people crashed in front of me, and I just kept chipping away.
"Moral of the story is we didn't stop fighting, and we got the result that we needed."
Bathurst is well known for its animal encounters, in 2021 an echidna on track stopped the race in its tracks to get the spikey intruder off the track.
A snake also stopped proceedings in 2024 and flocks of kangaroo up at the Skyline have narrowly avoided collision at races held on Mount Panorama.
