NASCAR fans missing out on Johnson?

If you are a NASCAR conspiracy-theorist, routinely call drivers 'a joke' (whatever that means) or threaten to stop watching races on a weekly (or even daily) basis for a myriad of pointless reasons - then you may want to stop reading now and skip down to the next post, because you are not going to like what you see.

Why? because I am going to talk about Jimmie Johnson. More specifically - I am going to talk about how Johnson is, well, under appreciated by the vast majority of NASCAR fans.

I know what you're thinking; "How on earth can he defend the guy that NASCAR is cheating for

each week? The most bland and boring driver on the track...Jeff Gordon's protege?!?!"

The answer is simple - because Johnson is good. Really good, in fact, and I don't think he gets enough credit for it.

Even if he doesn't win a fourth-consecutive championship, Johnson's list of accomplishments so far in his career are nothing short of outstanding; in seven full seasons of Cup racing (plus the first 30 races of this year), Jimmie has won 45 times, has never finished outside the top-5 in the point standings, is the only driver to have never missed the Chase, and of course - there are those three consecutive Sprint Cup titles.

Those numbers might not be quite as good as Jeff Gordon's stats in his championship-winning years of 1995-2001, but they are pretty darn close, and if Johnson does indeed win that fourth-consecutive championship, then there is nobody who can deny that the No.48 team is the dominant force in the sport.

OK, so we know the guy is good, what's the point?

Point is, in any other sport, Johnson would be heralded as the premier personality - the person that fans follow with respect and admiration, even if they don't root for him.

Johnson, especially if he wins this fourth-straight championship, is to NASCAR what Tiger Woods is to golf, Valentino Rossi is to MotoGP, or what Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan were to Hockey and Basketball - dominant forces that capture the attention and respect of all fans, even those that don't necessarily want them to win each week.

I know, I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but you have to admit that the guy is a future Hall of Famer - so why shouldn't we give Johnson his due and realize that we are not just watching a team win a bunch of races and make the sport 'boring', but rather the next in a progression of great NASCAR drivers?

And just because I know you are thinking it (or hurling insults at your computer screen...or both) - no, I'm not a Jimmie Johnson fan - just a fan of good racing and good racers.