It's Bristol Motor Speedway, the 2002 version, and the place is going crazy. It's one of those hot August nights on which the race track's reputation was made, 500 miles of anger and frustration and emotion and vengeance. Elliott Sadler gets in an accident and punches the side of an ambulance. Ward Burton throws his shoe heat shields at Dale Earnhardt Jr. And as 100,000 flashbulbs pop, a rookie named Jimmie Johnson stands on the apron, waiting on the car of Robby Gordon to circle back around. When it does, he greets it with a single-finger salute.

“

... those experiences from when I was a kid, about being a good sportsman about things, are still in my head today and carry through. Some people think it's boring and vanilla, but those are the reasons why I act the way I do.

”

-- JIMMIE JOHNSON

"I didn't think anybody was watching, for some reason," Johnson says now.

Was that even the same person? These days, it's difficult to imagine the ultra-cool, completely unflappable, three-time defending Cup champion resorting to such a base tactic as flipping the bird. He can still be a fiery dude, as anyone who's ever listened to him over the radio during races can attest, but when he's outside the car and the public eye is on him, he's almost always the very picture of composure. A few days after that rare loss of self control seven years ago, he issued a mea culpa apologizing to his sponsors and his team. But deep down, he probably knew it was wrong all along.

Because that's the kind of thing that would get his bike taken away from him.

The cool demeanor, the unruffled personality, the ever-present poise -- they come from more than just being a child of laid-back Southern California. They come from having a father who didn't tolerate lapses in sportsmanship, and taught his son at an early age to not let anger get the best of him. Johnson even remembers his first lesson: he was a kid trying to move up from 60cc to 80cc motorcycles, and grew frustrated when the heavier bike fell over and he couldn't pick it back up.

"I was too small. So I kicked the bike because I was mad," recalled the NASCAR driver, who got his start in motorcycles and off-road vehicles. "My dad was watching and said, 'You don't kick your bike.' He put the bike in the trailer, and I didn't get to race the rest of the weekend for kicking my bike and not being a good sport about things. Those things stick with me today and help me keep my mouth shut and keep me out of trouble in most cases."

Staying out of trouble, on and off the race track, has become Johnson's specialty. He's had plenty of opportunities to blow his temper this season, from run-ins with Kurt Busch at Sonoma, Chicago and New Hampshire to a pair of dominating performances at Michigan that went for naught because of fuel mileage miscalculations. Although things have gotten heated over the radio a few times, in each case, he's been the same cool Jimmie by the time he's climbed out of the car. Which is why, in retrospect, that incident with Gordon all those years ago seems so shockingly out of character.

Of course, it's not the only time in his racing career that emotions have gotten the best of him. Johnson remembers another moment from his motorcycle days, when he was 9 or 10 years old, and he was battling a fast rider who had come over from another town. On a wet spot of race track, they made contact and went down in a heap. The other kid stood on Johnson's bike to prevent him from picking it back up. Soon the two of them were rolling on the ground, throwing punches. A corner worker separated them, but after the race Johnson went after the other rider again.

Once more, it was time for Gary Johnson to step in and teach his son a lesson.

"I come in the pits and jump off my bike and go running over there and make a fool of myself," Jimmie said. "My dad had a really good way of trying to teach me how to not be a poor sport, and through that experience, and the talking my dad had with me and how he made me feel and how I looked -- you know, I came in the pits, threw my bike down, went running over there yelling and screaming -- my dad just helped me understand that wasn't cool. That's not how you handle it, and there are ways to handle it."

How does Johnson handle things today? He's not a yeller and a screamer. He doesn't have a mental catalogue of cutting one-liners ready for when the cameras arrive. But he's very forthright about dealing with his adversaries, to the point where he's sometimes approached them right after the race in question, ready to resolve the issue then and there. To another driver accustomed to trading barbs through the media or letting feuds fester, that kind of direct tactic can be somewhat intimidating in its own way.

So if things get heated at Bristol again Saturday night, you're unlikely to see Johnson react the same way he did seven years ago.

"The way I handle situations and talking to people and dealing with people afterward, and by no means do I back down, but I just do it in the right way and it's just carried over into my professional life," he said. "I really enjoyed flipping Robby off that night. I'm sure a lot of people would like to flip him off right now, too. When I flipped him off, I was thinking in the back of my mind of that moment when I was a kid at the local track. I'm like, 'Man, that talking that my dad gave me is going through my mind right now, and that probably wasn't the best thing to do.'

"So those experiences help me from when I was a kid, about being a good sportsman about things, are still in my head today and carry through. Some people think it's boring and vanilla, but those are the reasons why I act the way I do."