Personality or performance? Johnson just gets it done

By David Poole

dpoole@charlotteobserver.com

Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008

• Race day | Can Reutimann keep it rolling?
• Qualifying results | How they'll line up Sunday
• Final practice | Hamlin fastest late Saturday; Johnson 4th on the list
• Saturday's first practice | Johnson tops the Sprint Cup speed chart
• Friday Cup speeds | Montoya fastest in practice before qualifying
• Opinion | Getting students up to speed among academy's aims

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - It's hard to put an enigma onto a T-shirt.

Dale Earnhardt was The Intimidator. David Pearson was The Silver Fox. Richard Petty was The King. Darrell Waltrip was Jaws.

Jimmie Johnson?

Well, some of the guys he knew growing up in California will tell you the driver who could clinch a third straight Sprint Cup championship Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway is the same "jackass from El Cajon" he's always been.

But Johnson doesn't make it a habit of acting like that kind or any other kind of animal around his race car. Racing is his job. And he means business.

"I don't know what it is about going to my work space and maybe not letting my personality come through," Johnson said. "I'm just focused on what I've got to do."

What he's got to do Sunday is finish 36th or better - 37th if he leads a lap - to lock out Carl Edwards in this year's Chase for the Sprint Cup. Johnson starts 30th after a poor qualifying run Friday while Edwards starts fourth, but still a lot of stars would have to align for Johnson to be denied a third straight title.

If he wins it, Johnson and 1976-78 champion Cale Yarborough would be the only drivers with three straight titles. Seven-time champions Petty and Earnhardt never did that, and neither has Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports teammate, four-time champ Jeff Gordon.

Since moving to the Cup series in 2002, Johnson has won 40 races. Gordon has won 23 in those same seven seasons, while Tony Stewart has won 21. Since starting his championship streak in 2006, Johnson has 22 wins. Carl Edwards is next with 11.

"I don't understand why Jimmie hasn't gotten more credit than he has gotten for being one of the best who has ever been in a car," car owner Rick Hendrick said. " ... He just seems to get better. People might not say it today, but I think people are starting to see it and starting to appreciate the talent that he has."

Perhaps the problem is that nobody has found some Johnson characteristic that can be exaggerated into a caricature and converted into a convenient slogan or icon.

"I've been myself," Johnson said. "If it's hard to figure out, I guess I'm hard to figure out. It's not that I'm trying to be anything, I'm just being myself. ... I'm not one that's going to sit up at night and say, 'Wow, I need to be the funny guy or I need to be The Intimidator.' ... I'm just doing my thing. I guess I'm the confusing guy."

Johnson said he's also not the guy to ask if you want to compare him with Yarborough, the hard-charging South Carolinian whose record Johnson seeks to match Sunday, or others who have emerged as the top stars in NASCAR's history.

"I don't think I have, or any driver, has the right to proclaim his spot in history," Johnson said. "That's not for that person to decide. That's for the fans and for the guys who have done it and who are in that club. ... I don't comment about it because I'm 33 and still racing, and I don't feel like it's my spot to say those things. ... I have a lot of years left in the car to really make my mark in the sport."

Yarborough said he sees similarities between himself and Johnson and their respective eras.

"Back in the '70s there was tremendous competition," Yarborough said. "All of those guys, they were all great race car drivers. Jimmie is going up against some good drivers today. We were all dedicated drivers. Jimmie is a dedicated driver. ... That's what it takes to run races and win championships, is to have that dedication and determination to get it done. It's just hard to do."

In the three seasons Yarborough drove Junior Johnson-owned cars to his championships, only seven drivers competed in all 90 races held in those seasons. Twenty drivers have run all 107 races held since 2006. Eleven different drivers won races between 1976 and 78, while 20 drivers have won since 2006.

"There are just a lot of good race teams that are competing now, trying to win the championship," said three-time champion Darrell Waltrip, an analyst for Fox Sports. "In the '70s there weren't but four or five teams with a realistic chance of winning the championship. Winning three championships back then was a great accomplishment, but it's a greater accomplishment, in my mind, today."

The most dramatic change, though, is money. Yarborough won $1,638,551 in his three championships seasons combined. Johnson has won $1,950,299 in the nine races held so far in this year's Chase. True or not, the perception among veteran drivers is that has a lot to do with why Johnson and Edwards, who comes into Sunday trailing by 141 points, sound more like cousins than rivals when discussing their championship battle.

Waltrip, for one, wishes the contenders would show at least a little more animosity.

"I liked rivalries," Waltrip said. "I liked Bobby (Allison) and me not getting along, or me and Rusty (Wallace) or me and Dale (Earnhardt). It made it fun. You were out there on the track and you couldn't wait to stick it to him.

"You had to have somebody to go after, and that made you better and it made them better and it made the sport better.

"Jimmie is scared to death to be Jimmie Johnson. He has to be the Jimmie Johnson, who's politically correct and doesn't say anything wrong and make anybody mad. ... I have to think there is some place, some point and some time in every weekend that he goes and bangs his head against the wall or hits somebody.

"Maybe that's what is wrong with (crew chief) Chad (Knaus). Maybe he beats Chad up every night."

But Dale Jarrett, also a former champion who works now as an analyst for ESPN, doesn't agree.

"It's not that because you have a spirit and desire to be successful, that you have to be a jerk and treat people badly," Jarrett said. "There are a lot of good people who are great competitors. Unfortunately, some of the ones who do it a little differently get a lot of the ink because somebody has come up with the idea that's what people want to see and that's what sells. That's not true."

Right, Johnson said.

"What's wrong with good competition and people that respect each other and teams that respect each other?" he said. "I don't know why we have to be a circus act to make it a good show."

Or to sell T-shirts.

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