Superstock Thunder: Two Nights Of Full-Contact Chaos
- May 28
- 2 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Date: Friday 27 February & Saturday 28 February 2027
Friday: Round Two City Smart Repairs Superstock Points Dash
Saturday: Superstock Thunder
Location: Awapuni Speedway (Eastland Group Raceway)Awapuni Road, Gisborne
Official Website: www.gisbornespeedway.co.nz
There are sports where contact is frowned upon.
New Zealand Superstocks is not one of them.
Every summer, Awapuni Speedway in Gisborne transforms into one of the loudest and most aggressive sporting arenas in the country as Superstock Thunder arrives for a huge two-night showdown of dirt, noise and organised mechanical violence.
And if you have never experienced New Zealand Superstocks live before, the first thing to understand is this:
Contact is not accidental.
Cars lean on each other, push rivals into the wall, block faster competitors and occasionally sacrifice themselves entirely for teammates. It is uniquely New Zealand motorsport culture. Loud V8 engines. Heavy steel chassis. Clay flying into the grandstands. Thousands of fans standing trackside screaming at cars they can barely see through the dust.
The upcoming Superstock Thunder weekend at Awapuni Speedway is expected to attract some of the country’s top Superstock competitors along with visiting teams, crews and travelling fan bases from across the North Island.
But the track itself is part of the reason the event feels different in Gisborne.
Awapuni Speedway is known nationally as “The Home of the Big Banked Track”, and once you see it in person, the nickname makes sense immediately. The steep clay banking gives the racing a sense of speed that feels almost exaggerated compared to flatter tracks elsewhere in New Zealand. Cars launch into the corners sideways, suspension fully loaded, often inches from the concrete wall while rooster tails of clay spray into the night sky.
The venue has developed a reputation as one of the country’s more intimidating and visually dramatic speedway tracks.
At night, under lights, with the crowd packed into the embankments and the smell of fuel drifting across Awapuni Road, it feels less like polished modern motorsport and more like old-school speedway at its rawest.
And that is exactly why fans keep travelling here.
The event weekend combines:
Superstocks
Minisprints
Stockcars
Streetstocks
Saloons
Support classes across two nights of racing
For visitors unfamiliar with Gisborne speedway culture, the atmosphere can be surprisingly intense. Families line the fences. Crews work frantically in the pits between races. Rivalries are remembered for years. And when a major hit happens in the corner, the crowd reacts instantly.
It is part motorsport, part theatre, part tribal warfare.
And on a warm Gisborne summer night, there are few events in the city that generate quite the same energy.
