Johnson may be the sport's most impressive discovery (cont'd)

Other NASCAR drivers, Casey Mears and Robby Gordon among them, have come from off-road racing, but none previous have enjoyed success of the magnitude of 33 race wins, two championships and the potential for so much more. When he finally landed in Busch, with a startup Herzog Motorsports team that's since shut down, he managed one victory and four top-fives in his first 72 starts. He struggled to drive an under-powered car, and didn't always get along with his owners. Somehow, Gordon and Hendrick saw through it all, the first step in turning an anonymous Californian into the most overpowering force in the sport.

"The reason why I suggested him to Rick Hendrick is because he impressed me before he was ever in a Cup car," Gordon said. "And I really thought if we put him in the kind of car and equipment that I had been in for all the years, that he could have the same type of success that I had. And to me, he has the capability of having more success. So it is pretty awesome to see it come from way back then to where it is now and to see how he's matured. He was always fast, but he had to control that. The first year I saw huge improvement. The second year he was battling for the championship. And he started to become aware of what it took to be a champion."

Even Johnson seems stunned by it all. After all, he's winning races at a clip nobody thought was possible anymore, not in this age of so many sponsors and so many good teams fielding so many fully funded cars. This isn't 1998, when Gordon won 13 races, when the super teams were just taking over and single-car organizations were withering and everyone was scrambling to catch up. It's supposed to be harder to win races and championships now, with the Chase and new cash-rich manufacturers and rules implemented to share the wealth. Johnson is making it all look effortless.

"It is so far above and beyond anything I've ever imagined, and I've always had high goals," he said. "It's so higher than any goal I've set in my life, and I'm like, 'All right, what's out there?' I would love to be in position to have race wins or championships like Jeff does. And that's kind of where I guess I would set my mark, even though it is so far above where I thought I'd be. I'm kind of laughing about it. I'm saying, 'Yeah, let's go for those goals.' And I feel like I have a lot of years of driving ahead of me."

To the rest of the Nextel Cup garage, those words are frightening. No one has intimidated opponents or demoralized competition like this in a long time. And no one expected it from a driver who seemed to come from nowhere.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.