Even Better Than You Think He Is

How good is Jimmie Johnson? Just listen to his rivals.

Jonathan Ferrey, Getty Images

On a sunny January afternoon, the biggest names on the roster for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona crowd into Victory Lane for a photo op billed as "A Gathering of Champions." Four Indianapolis 500 winners mill about with victors from F1, Champ Car, Superbike, motocross and other series followed by only the greasiest gearheads. Dario, Danica, Montoya—they're all here. Even celebrity racer and prime-time champ Patrick Dempsey (Dr. McDreamy) struts by. At this moment, there is no greater concentration of cocksureness anywhere else on planet Earth. That's how racers are. They believe—know—that they are smarter, quicker and cooler than everyone else around them. They refuse to believe that they can be beaten in equal equipment under equal conditions. And they don't hand out praise. All of which makes the next few minutes all the more jaw-dropping.

As Jimmie Johnson strides through the wrought-iron gate, he shakes his head at the throng. "These are the kinds of events where you think maybe this isn't real," says NASCAR's three-time defending champ, taking in the assemblage of superfriends. "When you're a kid racing trucks in the California dirt, you don't exactly expect to be hanging out with Indy 500 winners at Daytona."

In reality, though, it's everyone else who's wondering if they're worthy of JJ's presence. The chattering stops and Victory Lane snaps to attention as the fans gathered on the other side of the fence begin to scream. "This scene just became high-rent," says defending IRL and Indy 500 champion Scott Dixon. "The champion of champions has arrived. What? You thought all those people over there were here to shout for me?"

"This scene just became high-rent," says defending IRL and Indy 500 champion Scott Dixon. "The champion of champions has arrived. What? You thought all those people over there were here to shout for me?"

As hard as Johnson tries to blend in—he'll spend the Rolex 24 hiding behind wraparound shades and a winter beard—his one-man mangling of the record books continues to draw accolades from those who don't particularly like to dish them out. That is, his peers. "We're not a touchy-feely group," says Dario Franchitti, who did the Indy double in 2007 (winning the 500 and the league title), then sputtered through half a season in Sprint Cup last year. "But you win three consecutive championships, no matter what the discipline, and the first people to stand in line to congratulate you will be other racers, even if it pains us. We all know how difficult it is to win one title, let alone three. But three in a row? That's nuts, especially in NASCAR. It's brutal over there. Trust me, I know."

Johnson's three-peat is just the second one in NASCAR's 60-year history, putting him alongside one of his childhood idols, Cale Yarborough. But to those who race for a living, what JJ has accomplished reaches much further back and much further forward than three Cups in three years. "There was never any ramp-up time for him," says Casey Mears, Johnson's childhood buddy and former Hendrick Motorsports teammate. "He started winning about as soon as he got in a Cup car and has literally never had a bad season. No one does that. Everybody has to suck sometime. But Jimmie never does. It kind of pisses me off."

What Johnson has done in his first seven Cup seasons is nothing less than the finest-ever start to any stock car career. He's been better than the young Richard Petty was, better than Dale Earnhardt—and yes, even better than his mentor and team co-owner, Jeff Gordon. Through seven seasons, Gordon led his handpicked protégé in wins (49 to 40) and poles (30 to 19), but Johnson held the edge in the stats that forecast championships, such as top-10 finishes (156 to 144), DNFs (25 to 37) and average finish (2.4 to 4.7).

So impressive is Johnson's résumé that the notoriously reclusive Yarborough agreed to present him with his 2008 championship ring at NASCAR's annual banquet, in December at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria hotel. "You want to know the most remarkable thing he's done?" Yarborough says. "He's never finished worse than fifth in the point standings. I only really ran the full schedule for eight years, in the 1970s; back then, you had maybe a half-dozen guys running for the championship, and we still ended up ninth in points one year. Jimmie's never finished lower than fifth!" Yarborough pauses. "How old is he … 33? Makes you wonder what he's going to do next, doesn't it?"

Johnson's future captures the imagination of even those who are trying to stop him. "You look for chinks in the armor, but there aren't any," says Carl Edwards, series runner-up to Johnson last year and everyone's pick to steal away Cup No. 4. "So you stop waiting on him to make a mistake and start working harder to make sure you don't. That's your only chance to catch him, because he just doesn't slip up. Never has."

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That endless traction begins on the Hendrick shop floor, where the 2009 Lowe's team has almost the same lineup as the '08, '07, '06 and '02 teams. Chad Knaus is still the crew chief, with no immediate aspirations to move on, refusing to fall prey to the same starry-eyed moves that killed practically every other NASCAR dynasty. Petty won seven Cup titles with crew chief Dale Inman but zero after his cousin abruptly left, in 1981, to see if he could win with someone else. (Inman won with Terry Labonte in 1984.) Gordon grabbed three Cups in seven years with Ray Evernham at the helm, but he has won just one more in the nine years since his mentor became an owner. Only Earnhardt was able to roll along no matter who was atop the pit box, winning seven titles with three chiefs.

"But look at the rest of the team," says Danny "Chocolate" Myers, gas-can man for Earnhardt's Flying Aces pit crew. "We had the same six or seven guys for nearly 20 years. These days, a team has a good year, gets raided and has to rebuild. We stayed until we got too old to do it anymore. It looks like that's the goal of all the guys around Jimmie and Chad. We were a family—still are. So are they."

Johnson is only half-kidding when he says, "There's no doubt in my mind that I have worked harder on my relationship with Chad than I have with my wife. There are plenty of times when he and I need a break from each other, but ultimately we know that we're way better off together than apart."

Why is that?

"Because we both want the same thing: to keep winning races and championships. Until someone can show us a better way to do that, we'll keep doing what we've always done and keep doing it together."

Only eight drivers have won three or more NASCAR championships, and only three of those—Petty, Earnhardt and Gordon—own more Cups than Johnson. Those three were recently referred to as stock car racing's Mount Rushmore. But every good Rushmore must have a fourth, and any face on NASCAR's ultimate edifice must have a fourth title.

Johnson just smiles and says he doesn't think about such haughty aspirations. He'd just as soon let wins and other folks do that talking for him. All he'll say is, "You'll have to find someone pretty damn special to get other racers to brag about him."

Looks like we've already found that guy.

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