Stunt Races are a class of competitive racing content introduced to Grand Theft Auto Online in 2016 as part of the Cunning Stunts update. They represent a significant evolution of the racing pillar of GTA Online, layering theatrical, physics-defying track architecture on top of the established free-roam-and-create racing framework already present since the game's launch (Rockstar North, 2013; Wikipedia, 2026a). Where the original GTA Online races used streets, off-road trails, water and airspace within the existing San Andreas geometry, Stunt Races introduced custom prop-built tracks suspended above the map: loop-the-loops, corkscrews, narrow girders, ramps, half-pipes, speed boosts and rings of fire that explicitly evoke Hot Wheels-style toy circuits and the stunt sequences of arcade racers (Wikipedia, 2026a).
The Cunning Stunts update, released on 12 July 2016, added 13 new vehicles and 16 official stunt races at launch, alongside a new "Premium Stunt Race" daily rotation that offered larger payouts (Wikipedia, 2026a). The update was followed by Cunning Stunts: Special Vehicle Circuit in 2017, which combined the stunt-track design language with the weaponised and gimmick vehicles that had been arriving via the Import/Export and Special Vehicle Work content, including the Rocket Voltic, Ruiner 2000 and Blazer Aqua (Wikipedia, 2026a). Stunt Races sit alongside Open Wheel Races, Transform Races, Arena War events and the LS Car Meet's street race series as one of the principal competitive driving modes that have defined GTA Online's long content tail (Wikipedia, 2026a).
Mechanically, Stunt Races leverage the underlying RAGE physics tuning together with environmental prop assets — including giant orange ramps, neon-edged tubes, jump pads and looping rails — to push tracks vertically and into mid-air, well beyond the bounds of normal road geometry (Rockstar North, 2013; Wikipedia, 2026b). Speed boost strips accelerate vehicles to velocities at which the loops and large jumps become physically plausible within the engine, while slow-motion zones can be placed before tight corners. The mode supports the same up-to-30-player session structure that governs the rest of GTA Online, although individual races are typically capped well below that figure (Wikipedia, 2026a).
Stunt Races also became one of the primary showcases for new "Super" and "Sports" class vehicles added across the Cunning Stunts, Import/Export, Smuggler's Run and subsequent updates, with Rockstar frequently launching new cars into a rotating Premium Stunt Race slot to drive in-game economy engagement (Wikipedia, 2026a). Because the mode pays out GTA$ and RP bonuses for top finishes and offers Triple Rewards during weekly event promotions, it became a staple of the "what's new this week" GTA Online loop that has been documented across the title's continuous post-release support (Wikipedia, 2026a; Wikipedia, 2026b).
The Content Creator toolset, present in GTA Online since 2013's Deathmatch & Race Creators update, allowed players to author their own races by placing start points, checkpoints, route nodes and vehicle drops, then testing the layout against AI before publishing it for the community (Wikipedia, 2026a). With Cunning Stunts, this Creator was substantially expanded: the stunt props — ramps, loops, tubes, boost strips, half-pipes and barriers — were exposed as placeable objects, enabling players to construct their own stunt circuits in the sky and to publish them via Rockstar Games Social Club for verification ("Rockstar Verified") and broader community play (Wikipedia, 2026a).
This community-authored stunt track scene was tightly coupled to the Rockstar Editor, the in-game video capture, replay and editing suite originally released for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V in April 2015 and subsequently extended to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One via the Freemode Events update on 15 September 2015 (Wikipedia, 2026b). The Rockstar Editor allows players to record gameplay clips, manipulate cameras, set depth-of-field and time-of-day, splice multiple takes, add licensed in-game radio tracks and export edited videos at up to 60 frames per second and 4K resolution on PC (Wikipedia, 2026b). Director Mode, bundled with the same update, lets players spawn into Los Santos as any of dozens of NPC models or story characters, control time, weather and traffic density, and use that sandbox as a staging environment for Editor capture (Wikipedia, 2026a).
The combination of Stunt Race tracks and the Rockstar Editor produced an enduring user-generated "stunt montage" culture on platforms such as YouTube. Players would design extreme custom stunt circuits in the Creator, run them in private lobbies or with crews, capture the resulting jumps, near-misses, synchronised drifts and crashes via the Editor, then cut them together into music-led highlight reels. This community output mirrored, and to a degree predated, similar trends around later stunt-focused titles, and it became a recognised pillar of GTA Online's organic marketing, with Rockstar regularly resharing stunt clips through Social Club and the Rockstar Newswire (Wikipedia, 2026a).
Critically and commercially, Cunning Stunts and the broader Stunt Race ecosystem were treated as a significant pivot in GTA Online's identity. Reviewers and journalists noted that the update pushed the game further from its original crime-sandbox premise toward an explicitly arcade, almost Trackmania-like racing experience, a direction Rockstar continued with the Special Vehicle Circuit, Transform Races, Open Wheel Races and Arena War (Wikipedia, 2026a). The Stunt Race template also influenced how later updates introduced new vehicles: rather than relying solely on free-roam utility, many post-2016 cars were tuned and marketed primarily around their performance on stunt circuits and Premium Race rotations (Wikipedia, 2026a).
From a player-creation standpoint, Stunt Races demonstrated that GTA Online's Creator could sustain a long-tail of community content beyond the original deathmatch/race templates. This logic was eventually extended in December 2025 with the addition of the Rockstar Mission Creator, which built on lessons from years of Creator and Stunt Race iteration to allow players to author entire missions with NPCs and cutscenes (Wikipedia, 2026a). Stunt Races are thus best understood not as a one-off update but as a structural turning point — one that, together with the Rockstar Editor, formalised GTA Online as both a competitive racing platform and a player-driven content factory.
Rockstar North (2013) Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online. New York: Rockstar Games.
Wikipedia (2026a) Grand Theft Auto Online. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_Online (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2026b) Grand Theft Auto V. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_V (Accessed: 14 May 2026).