For decades, the early careers of NASCAR legends like Dale Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards, and Davey Allison very quickly set the bar sky-high. They came into Cup and started winning almost right away, putting up numbers that made people whisper “future champion” before the rookie stripes were even off the car.

When a new driver shows up and starts collecting trophies fast, the first 50 starts become the measuring stick everyone watches. Then Shane van Gisbergen showed up from New Zealand, climbed into Trackhouse No. 88, and quietly turned that measuring stick into firewood.

Shane van Gisbergen just grabbed a new record

By his 50th Cup start in 2025, Shane van Gisbergen had six wins. Six. That’s one more than Tony Stewart managed in his first fifty, three more than Dale Earnhardt, more than any driver in the modern era. SVG didn’t just tie the old kings; he passed them and kept going.

He didn’t do it the easy way either. Road courses, street circuits, ovals big and small, he’s won on all of them. The guy who showed up speaking with an accent and calling the draft “funny” figured out American stock cars faster than anyone thought possible. Six wins in fifty starts isn’t luck. It’s the kind of start that makes you check the record book twice.

What makes it wild is how tough the field is now. Back when Dale Earnhardt and Tony Stewart were stacking early wins, the garage was deep, but today it’s deeper. More manufacturers fighting, tighter rules, better cars top to bottom. Yet SVG rolled in and started beating everybody like he’d been doing it his whole life.

Fans expected him to be good on road courses, sure. Nobody expected him to learn ovals this quickly and start stealing races from guys who grew up on them. Six wins before start number fifty-one puts him in territory only the absolute greats have touched. And he’s still got gas in the tank.

The scary part? He’s only getting started. If he keeps this pace, the record book is going to need a whole new section.

While SVG is busy rewriting the record books on track, old ghosts are coming back to haunt NASCAR off it. Day two of the antitrust trial brought up Tony Stewart’s short-lived SRX series, and the picture that came out wasn’t pretty.

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NASCAR played dirty to block Tony Stewart

NASCAR exec Scott Prime took the stand and confirmed what a lot of people suspected: the second SRX looked like a real threat, NASCAR went to work making sure it never got big. Internal docs showed they worried drivers and teams might jump ship or use SRX as leverage. So they leaned on the charter agreement’s “goodwill” clause that basically says if you own a Cup charter, you can’t help a rival stock-car series.

That clause kept big-name owners from touching SRX with a ten-foot pole. Then there were the track deals. Speedway Motorsports wanted to host SRX races because the shows were fun and fans loved them, but their contract with NASCAR had a line that said no competing stock-car series without permission. Permission never came.

Steve Phelps, in his leaked text, had said, “These guys are just plain stupid. Need to put a knife in this trash series.”

It wasn’t just talk. NASCAR saw a series built around stars, short tracks, and Thursday-night TV as a danger, so they used every rule in the book to box it out. SRX still ran for a few years, but it never got the big teams or the big venues it needed to grow. Tony Stewart built something fans wanted to watch, and NASCAR made sure it stayed small.

SVG is busy proving you can come from anywhere and dominate if the car is right. Meanwhile, the courtroom is showing just how hard NASCAR worked to make sure nobody else could ever build a stage big enough to try.

One story about a guy from New Zealand breaking records. Another about a home-grown legend who tried to give fans something different and got shut down. Same sport, two very different lessons about what it really takes to win in NASCAR.