NEW YORK -- He stood on stage at the theatre in the Hard Rock Café in Times Square, accepting the latest in a week's worth of applause and congratulations for winning the Nextel Cup championship. With his spotless white firesuit and his made-for-television smile, Jimmie Johnson looked every inch a sponsor's and car owner's dream.

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Hard to believe it was the same guy who broke his wrist last offseason trying to surf on top of a golf cart, or spent his youth trying not to fall off of motorbikes and four-wheelers, or for fun used to sway from a rope swing suspended 20 feet over a dry riverbed in his native Southern California. By all accounts, the Jimmie Johnson known to his friends and family is a risk-taker to the core. But the professed daredevil -- "I've always enjoyed scaring myself," he says -- is in hibernation this time of year, replaced by the same cool, calculating driver who's won the last two Nextel Cup titles.

It's almost as if there are two Johnsons, the one who mercilessly mows down his opponents on Sunday afternoons, and the one who used to amuse himself with activities like jumping off of cliffs (not very high ones, we presume). Merging those two personas is the challenge of every public person who through accomplishment is thrust into the public eye. It's not always simple in NASCAR, where drivers must live and race to standards set by team owners, sponsors, fans and the sanctioning body. And then they're told: Just be yourself. As if it were that easy.

"I've always known who I am, what I like to do and how I like to enjoy myself. But being on the main stage like this, it's different, and you aren't trained to do this as a kid," Johnson said Wednesday during Champions Week activities. "I was trained to go fast, mind my business, act sportsmanlike. That was what was ingrained in me through my parents: Be respectful, be nice, appreciate your sponsors. That's all I've known. I've had to learn this as an adult, in front of everyone, how to have more of a personality and how to do these things. It's challenging. But it's what we've chosen to all do, and you've got to ride the good and the bad. You're going to experience both."

It's a delicate balance. Sponsors and team owners like drivers who smile and say the right things. But NASCAR is a sport that has historically been driven by competition on the track and personalities off it, populated by characters like Curtis Turner, Buddy Baker or Dale Earnhardt who seemed to leap out of the television set or off the printed page. Those types are in short supply these days, when sponsors hold sway with multi-million-dollar investments, and drivers like Johnson climbed the ladder by learning to act and speak a certain way.

Jeff Gordon went through the same thing. When he arrived in NASCAR, he was mustachioed kid out of Indiana who tried to act the way people wanted him to act. Today he's a four-time champion unafraid of letting opinions, even potentially unpopular ones, fly. Which is exactly what he did Wednesday, when the series runner-up expressed concern that drivers' personalities are being buried under an avalanche of expectation.

"One of the issues we have in our sport right now is, there's so much more personality in all these guys that you don't get to see," he said. "The reason is because we're representing the sport, our fans, sponsors, and you have to be cautions about letting yourself get too far out there. I think sometimes we get caught up in trying to be -- and I'm a perfect example of this -- trying to be what we think the fans want us to be or the sponsors want us to be. You still have to be yourself. But you also have to have limits on that, because we are under a microscope. There's a lot of criticism that comes along if you step out of line. And you just don't want to deal with the controversy. You'd rather stay under the radar, do your job, and make actions speak louder than anything else."

There are so many parties to keep happy. NASCAR doesn't want its competitors to cast the series in a bad light. Sponsors don't want their pitchman -- guys like Johnson, who is the centerpiece of the entire marketing campaign for Lowe's -- making them look bad. Drivers don't want to get fined and suspended. As a result, Gordon believes, competitors bottle up true emotion. And is it a coincidence that television ratings have gone down?

"I think if we want the sport to continue to grow -- and I'm not trying to criticize the guy -- but to me Kurt Busch is a perfect example. And you can take Tony Stewart as well. Here are two guys, they can look at it however they want. I look at it as entertaining. If they said something that was silly or people laughed about or talked about or criticized, it' still generating entertainment or buzz," said Gordon, who led the points for most of this past season but lost the title to Johnson by 77 points.

"And now, Tony doesn't knock cameras out of his way. You don't hear him getting riled up, you don't see the controversy. I think some of that has taken away from the entertainment package. Kurt Busch, he says everything perfect, just right. It's like every interview is scripted. I kind of miss the old Kurt Busch. Maybe that's some of going to Penske or whatever. It's keeping him out of trouble, it's keeping him out of controversy, so for him it probably works better that way. But for the sport, it probably takes away from it."

But for drivers, that's a difficult bargain. Sure, outbursts may generate more attention, but Stewart's 2002 run-in with a photographer nearly got him fired. Busch's brutally candid dealings with his former Roush Racing team led to his departure. And though it may have opened a door to his more adventurous side, Johnson's cart-surfing episode on a Florida golf course led to plenty of finger-wagging from people who wondered why he'd subject himself to such risk.

"It's just common knowledge to know that you've got to stay in line because you're a professional, and you've got to handle it in a professional way," Busch said. "It's not high school football, it's not college football, it's professional football. It's professional racing, and you've got to handle it that way."

But sometimes, being a professional doesn't seem like much fun. Gordon would like to see NASCAR provide some black-and-white guidelines for behavior, so drivers can know just how far to cut loose.

"I think they really need to explain to the drivers what their limitations are, and what they consider over the line and within the boundaries, and try to encourage everybody to be yourself," he said. "Let your personality come out. This is what the fans want to see. This is what the audience wants to see. Their personalities have become a big part of this sport. It's not about what happens on the racetrack."

NASCAR isn't always as heavy-handed as it seems; no fines were levied for the shoving incident between Juan Montoya and Kevin Harvick at Watkins Glen, or for the fake punch Carl Edwards threw at Matt Kenseth at Martinsville. But in both cases, many fans conditioned to punishment clamored for some type of penalty. And in the aftermath, Gordon worries, drivers withdraw even deeper into their safe, private shell.

"I think Carl has an awesome personality and a lot of excitement, and an incident like what happened in Martinsville shouldn't stop him from being himself," Gordon said. "It's OK to be angry and be mad. Maybe don't act like you're going to punch the guy with a smirk on your face, but it's OK to do some of those things if you understand what the consequences will be and what the boundaries are. NASCAR, I don't think they want to fine somebody for saying a bad word or fighting. You can push, you can shove, you can argue. You can do those things. If you're happy, show it. If you're mad, show it. If you're angry, show it."

Yet even Gordon, with his 81 Nextel Cup victories, bows to the wishes of conservative car sponsor DuPont, and makes sure to shave before he shows up for corporate hospitality on Sunday mornings. It's a small concession from a driver who's gone through all the things his younger teammate is going through now, right down to the boos received on race days. Maybe those fans don't like the Johnson who goes to Victory Lane, but might like the Johnson who swings over ravines and jumps off cliffs. Winning alone, Gordon says, won't do it.

"These days, it's not enough. You've got to entertain people too, if you want endorsements, if you want to take it to the next level," Gordon said. "You have to have a lot of personality, and Jimmie has a lot of personality. I think over time, as he gets more and more comfortable with himself in this sport, more of that will come out."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.