Diagnosing cause behind outbreak of Jimmie Fatigue (cont'd)

"There's no question about that," agreed Humpy Wheeler, former race track promoter extraordinaire and an astute observer of fan likes and dislikes in NASCAR. "I've known [Johnson] since he ran ASA, and there's not a nicer guy in the world. He would do anything in the world for you. He's just absolutely perfect. You just want to shake him sometimes and say, 'Do something wrong!' You want a driver like that, and the crew chief wants a driver like that. The promoter doesn't.

"He's almost mechanical in his driving style. I told somebody that if you could build the kind of driver you wanted, you'd build a robot -- somebody who would never give them any problem, and drive the thing the way you're supposed to. Jimmie's such a good driver, he's almost perfect. He's almost too perfect, and I think that's the problem.

"Let's look at Arnold Palmer, for instance. Arnold hit it in the woods just like the rest of us. The difference is, Arnold hit it out onto the green, and we hit a tree. even [Muhammad] Ali, as great a boxer as he was, would get into trouble sometimes and come back. [Johnson] just doesn't do that. He's absolutely perfect, or you don't know he's in the race."

Given all he's accomplished, Johnson should be one of the biggest stars of the American sports landscape, someone who shouldn't be lowered to tossing pies with Regis and Kelly. That he's not makes you wonder what NASCAR faithful really want in their drivers.

It's an odd situation, given that greatness in other sports is celebrated rather than reviled -- dominance by Woods and Armstrong have helped put golf and cycling, respectively, on the map -- and that Johnson has done nothing to rub people the wrong way. He's a classy, upstanding guy who comes from humble beginnings, says all the right things and races his competitors cleanly.

And yet people try to discredit him through one canard after another: that he was a child of privilege, that he's a product of the Chase, that he and crew chief Chad Knaus are cheaters, that anybody could win in that No. 48 car. Meanwhile, the IndyCar Series would trade half the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and a lifetime supply of Brickyard Burgers for a soon-to-be four-time champion who's marketable, good-natured, sponsor-friendly, and American.

But in NASCAR, that's not quite enough to move the needle. "I think it's a matter of almost perfection," said Wheeler, who now runs the consulting firm The Wheeler Co. "He's almost perfect, all the way around. He never says the wrong thing, does the wrong thing on or off the race track, and that just gets boring after a while."

Given all he's accomplished, Johnson should be one of the biggest stars of the American sports landscape, someone who shouldn't be lowered to tossing pies with Regis and Kelly. That he's not makes you wonder what NASCAR faithful really want in their drivers.

The sport's most popular figure is Dale Earnhardt Jr., someone who's never won a Cup championship, and hasn't won a race in a while. Still, he seems better able to connect with those in the grandstands.

Junior didn't have it easy growing up -- his famous father sent him to military school, made him work in a car dealership, and had him learn his trade on a late-model short track. He's earned all he has. But he still came from a family worth more than most of us make in a lifetime, and yet Earnhardt's seen as a man of the people. Johnson, meanwhile, grew up in a mobile home as the son of a school-bus driver and heavy-equipment operator, and yet he's perceived as an elite.

"Here's the problem in the grandstand: The real race fan psychologically transposes himself to a driver down on the track," Wheeler said. "Psychologically, he becomes that driver. The fan in the grandstand is imperfect and knows that. He can't transpose himself onto Jimmie Johnson, because Jimmie Johnson is too perfect. He doesn't look like him, he doesn't act like him, and he certainly doesn't drive like him. So where's the transposition in the grandstand? That's where the problem is."

But what about winning? Isn't that what it's supposed to all be about? Where is that invisible line between winning just enough to please people, and winning too much to bore them? Or does it have to do with who's winning, and whether that person speaks with the right kind of accent or came from the right part of the country?

To be truly beloved, does a driver have to win and remind fans a little of themselves? No question, it's often difficult to see behind Johnson's cool, tailor-made championship persona, which obscures the golf-cart-surfing Jimmie who's really back there, and gives some people the false impression that he's arrogant or entitled. And yet, that persona is one reason he wins. His ability to find that detached, focused place within himself has been a linchpin of his championship run. He wouldn't be as good without it.

Funny, though. Tiger is the same way. When he's focused and on the golf course, Woods looks ahead with a gaze that could burn through metal. He doesn't slap high-fives or banter with fans across the ropes. His intensity level is almost frightening, and people who watch golf love it. He's in the zone, they say. They see that look, and they know the big drives and the clutch putts and the fist pumps are coming. They understand and appreciate it as a tool of his profession.

Maybe one day, before it's too late, NASCAR fans will shake off their Jimmie Fatigue and look at Johnson the same way.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.