Allen Rises from the Back: Thanksgiving Thunder Delivers a Stunning Strategy Upset at Phoenix

Avondale, AZ — The 2025 Thanksgiving Thunder at Phoenix Raceway brought together the best of Red Light Racing’s Monday and Thursday divisions, but few expected the season’s most dramatic twist to come from deep in the field. Ken Allen, who didn’t even take part in qualifying and rolled off from the tail end of the 30-car grid, executed one of the most daring off-sequence strategies in recent memory to charge all the way to the win in the 125-lap shootout. On a night defined by a punishing green-flag stretch, chaotic late-race cautions, and clashing agendas between two series sharing one racetrack, Allen’s climb of 30 positions became the story of the event.

Qualifying set the tone early, rewarding consistency over outright aggression. Zach Mitchell captured the pole with a 27.268 lap time, while Eric Stout lined up alongside him on the front row. When the green flag dropped, the mixed-series field displayed crisp execution, fanning out across the dogleg and making use of Phoenix’s sweeping apron. Mitchell quickly established control, pacing the field through the early laps. But the opening drama struck around Lap 14, when Stout and Sean Single tangled entering Turn 3. Stout pounded the outside wall and limped to an early exit, while Single soldiered on with what appeared to be a badly bent front end that cost him more than a second per lap.

As the long green-flag run continued, the race evolved into a war of attrition, with tire wear and clean air dictating every decision. Mitchell set the pace through the first third of the race before Andrew Lewis muscled his way to the lead around Lap 42. Maxime Theriault then added his name to the rotation by taking the front shortly after Lap 60. While the leaders traded positions up front, the middle of the pack became a swirl of divergent strategies as drivers wrestled with the razor-thin balance between running hard and saving enough tire for the eventual pit cycle. The unique “Honor Your Father-in-Law Lap” at Lap 63 briefly shuffled the focus when Chris Hammet earned a $10 bonus for holding the sixth position, a running joke in the booth as he enjoyed what was called the “most comfortable seat in the house” thanks to a generous buffer around him.

It was during this long, grueling stretch that Allen made the race-winning call. After missing qualifying entirely at the start, he ducked onto pit road around Lap 64—well before anyone else—and gave up two laps in the process. It was a gamble that only works when the yellow flag appears at exactly the right time, and with more than 60 laps of uninterrupted racing underway, it felt like a desperate swing. Yet as the leaders delayed their stops and the laps wound down, the race tightened just enough to bring Allen’s strategy back into view. Mitchell executed the cleanest pit stop among the contenders and briefly retook the advantage over Lewis and Theriault, with the three running nose-to-tail in a tense half-second cluster.

After more than a hundred straight laps of uninterrupted green racing, the first caution finally arrived with roughly 15 laps remaining when Louis Flowers and Allen Wannamaker made contact. The caution upended everything. Mitchell, Theriault, and Trent Potter were swept up in the scramble that followed, leaving their once-dominant machines battered and suddenly vulnerable. The new order elevated four drivers who had stayed out on older tires—Bill Benedict, Fred LeClair, Brian Neff, and Allen—catapulting Allen from 27th to fourth in one stroke. The next restart immediately triggered more chaos when Neff suffered catastrophic suspension damage in a multi-car stack-up, forcing another yellow.

With the field shuffled and tensions high, the race marched toward its inevitable Green-White-Checker phase, with up to three attempts available under Red Light Racing rules. On the restart with five laps remaining, Benedict led the field to green, but Allen—suddenly in prime position—pounced instantly. He swept past Benedict with four laps to go, just moments before another caution flew when Benedict and Allen briefly came together, sending LeClair spinning and setting up a two-lap shootout.

In the final dash, Allen planted his car firmly on the preferred inside line and never gave Benedict a chance to reclaim the lead. The battle behind him erupted into a frantic three-wide fight for second as drivers fanned out across the dogleg trying to get one final run. Allen, calm and composed, powered out of the final corner and crossed the line ahead of Benedict to complete one of the single greatest positional gains in the league’s history. Jeff Aho slipped through the late-race chaos to grab the final podium spot after climbing ten positions of his own.

For Allen—whose race nearly unraveled before it even began—the victory was a perfect marriage of bold strategy, tire discipline, and the well-timed caution he desperately needed. It was the type of win that turns an off-sequence gamble into legend, proving once again that even on a mile-long stage surrounded by speed, sometimes the sharpest tool a driver can bring is patience and a perfectly timed roll of the dice.