The Australian championship embarked on a long-awaited maiden NZ double-header earlier this month, venturing to the South Island for the first time.
Although the Ruapuna Raceway facility is in need of upgrades, the fans voted with their feet as a claimed 65,806 packed the venue across the three days.
“It rolled out as I expected it would,” Murphy told Speedcafe of the inaugural Christchurch Super440.
“Supercars, [events manager] Phil Shaw, his team and everyone else that played a part to build and prepare the place for the event need to be congratulated.
“Their canvas was not great and they created a spectacle that they should be really proud of.
“There was no question about the amount of people that were going to be there, that’s not a surprise to me at all.
“There’s just so many fans in this country and so many in the South Island. It was a huge success and it will continue to be.”
Murphy added the temporary additions to the carport structure that teams worked from is “not something that can be used again”.
“This place deserves better and there’s people that want to make that happen, so that’s fantastic,” he added.
Ruapuna’s owner, the Canterbury Car Club, and the Christchurch City Council hope to have a pit building constructed by 2027.
Supercars signed a three-year deal to race at the venue, announced alongside a three-year extension of its contract to return to Taupo.
A slide in attendance since the first Taupo event in 2024 has led to suggestions Supercars should move its North Island event to Hampton Downs, or alternate between the two.
Both tracks are owned by Tony Quinn.
Supercars landed on Taupo as a belated replacement for the fallen Pukekohe due to the NZ government’s desire to drive tourism to the town.
“I think Hampton Downs can be on the radar. That deserves a Supercar race,” said Murphy.
“Everyone would love to see Supercars there, but I think Taupo has still got life.
“Being that the first one in Christchurch is now done, I actually really feel that people will look at what happened in Taupo with how exciting the racing was and go, we’ve got two great events, with two very different venues.
“I think we’ll see support come back there. We always see a first year big hit [with a new event], then we always see it settle.
“I think people will be more keen to be at both events moving forward, try to do two, because it really is like a festival.
“We’re very lucky. I mean, I think the racing in Taupo is just unreal, very different because we’ve got tyre deg there and great combinations of corners.”
Murphy raced in support categories at both Taupo and Ruapuna, as well as supporting protege Ryan Wood.
Although Wood only lost the Jason Richards Trophy due to a reliability issue, the Grove Racing Mustangs were by far the cars to have at Ruapuna.
“I was really surprised how dominant one team turned out to be,” added Murphy.
“The gaps were bigger than I thought they’d be, but that just proves how challenging Ruapuna is as a driver’s circuit and it’s taken it to a higher level that I didn’t actually expect.
“I thought everyone would handle it really quite well and closely but it was really, really challenging, which is awesome.”
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