What happened to Jimmie Johnson between the end of last season and the beginning of this one? He grew a beard, that much we know. He caught a cold that he's struggled to get rid of. He speared his finger with a kitchen knife during the 24 hours race. He went on a vacation to Tahiti, shot a few commercials for his sponsors, co-hosted a charity golf tournament, and presumably bought all kinds of cool things with the $7.2 million in prize money that came with his latest championship.

And oh, yeah, there's one other thing. Sometime between last November and this weekend, when the Sprint Cup cars roar to life for the season-opening Budweiser Shootout exhibition at Daytona International Speedway, he went from hunted to hunter.

How this latter event happened, we're still not sure. In seven full-time seasons on NASCAR's premier circuit, Johnson has never finished lower than fifth in final points. He's won three consecutive titles, something only one other driver has done, and that was 30 years ago. He's mastered the Chase better than anyone, with 14 of his 40 career victories coming in the playoff, and an average finish of 8.58 over 50 postseason events. According to his Hendrick Motorsports team, Johnson's No. 48 crew returns from last season intact.

And yet Carl Edwards has emerged as the consensus favorite for the 2009 Sprint Cup championship, something Johnson realized during a session with reporters at last month's fan fest in Daytona. The first three questions were about getting back in the race car after a long layoff, his new brawny-man beard and his communication with crew chief Chad Knaus. Then it was hey, what do you think about Edwards being the popular pick to win the 2009 title, and does that mean you guys have fallen off?

Johnson's reaction: Say what? "I'm like, really? I just won three of these things," he said. "I can't believe I wouldn't be [the favorite]. But there's a lot of racing between now and then."

Granted, this isn't exactly college football, where seeding in preseason polls can have a direct effect on a program's postseason fortunes. Given that these guys decide everything on the race track, predictions mean exactly squat. And it's still relatively easy to find well-reasoned prognosticators who recognize what Johnson's done the last three seasons, and view him as the favorite to do the same thing again. Maybe, as Johnson's teammate Jeff Gordon surmises, people are playing percentages, or just tired of seeing the same guy win year after year. But so much of this seems to hearken back to the same refrain, of Johnson as the Rodney Dangerfield of NASCAR, a guy who's among the best ever at what he does yet for some reason doesn't receive the respect that should come along with it.

"I guess I'm amazed that, when you look at a guy that hasn't finished outside the top five in points and won three in a row, what you've got to do for everybody to say he's the guy to beat," said Rick Hendrick, Johnson's car owner. "I don't care. Carl, he's an excellent driver, good equipment, physical conditioning, mentally tough, and he's going to be a racer. But I'll put my money on Jimmie." (Continued)