LAS VEGAS -- They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Jimmie Johnson can only hope so.

Because we're through just one day of NASCAR's newly-relocated Champion's Week, and Johnson's reputation has already been beaten up worse than one of Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s sparring partners. Boring? Vanilla? Politically correct? Not according to Johnson's friends and fellow drivers, who poked plenty of fun at the four-time defending champion during a charity roast at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There were jokes about his receding hairline, and whether he uses medicinal help to keep his follicles in place. There were stories about late nights out and hazy mornings after. There were remarks that cannot be reprinted without risking a fine from the Federal Communications Commission.

"I can get this guy into more trouble than Tiger Woods right now," said former teammate Brian Vickers, smiling so broadly you knew he was telling the truth.

Goodness, who knew what NASCAR was unleashing when it decided to move its season-ending celebration from New York, where it had been for the previous 28 years, to the madcap, neon-lit, occasionally R-rated environs of Las Vegas. Manhattan could get plenty rowdy, with parties that went on until the wee hours and adult beverages that flowed like snowmelt down a hill. But it was also the kind of place where you wore a tie almost everywhere, where activities were held in austere, dark-wood-paneled rooms, where even in the midst of merriment there was a level of decorum to be maintained. Nobody, after all, ever dropped an F-bomb during a visit to the New York Stock Exchange.

Well, those days are over, at least for the time being. If Wednesday was any indication, the change in geography has brought with it a change in attitude, one that's lifted many of the constraints that prevented fans from getting close to their heroes and perhaps left the drivers feeling a little more willing to be themselves. Granted, there are two days still remaining in this Champion's Week, and there are still parts that feel a little too forced or heavily orchestrated. (Do we really need a TV personality hosting everything?) But despite the opulent surroundings of the Wynn, NASCAR's headquarters hotel -- yes, that is a real tile fresco on the floor of the elevator lobby -- there's no question that things feels a little less elitist and a little more accessible.

Just take the scene Wednesday at the speedway, for example. There was the sound of stock-car engines, for starters, piercing a wide, blue sky that didn't feature a cloud for miles. There was the country-rock group playing the Neon Garage, the lead singer decked out in the requisite cowboy hat, crooning about timeless topics like honky-tonks, whiskey, and small towns. There were the race fans, several hundred of them even by a conservative estimate, standing in line to get an autograph from Miss Sprint Cup or waiting alongside a red carpet that the drivers were due to traverse.

"I'm hoping that we get to see the drivers up close, because normally we can't," said Las Vegas resident Ray Longo, wearing a Jimmie Johnson football jersey his wife found for him on the Internet. "Usually, it's only what you see on TV."

No, we're definitely not in New York anymore -- unless we're talking about the New York-New York hotel and casino, where Johnson took part in a photo shoot Wednesday. Drivers arrived at the speedway in two helicopters, and made their way down a long red carpet bisecting the garage area, posing for photos and signing autographs all the way. Among the fan base, the excitement was palpable. "It's Jeff Gordon!" one young boy exclaimed over and over. Grown men and women leaned across the metal barriers, getting a rare, close-up look at the sport's top drivers outside of their helmets and firesuits. (Continued)