LAS VEGAS -- It was love at first sight. Jimmie Johnson was a rookie on the Cup circuit, driving to his first race weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, when he saw them -- motorized barstools, being sold under a tent by a guy at the side of the road.

"I drove by and thought, oh my god, I have to go back," Johnson remembered. "My dad was driving my motor home for me, and the first thing my dad says when I get out of the rental car is, 'Hey, did you see those bar stools up the road?' I said, 'I did, I saw them, go pick us up two.' So we did, and I've had them ever since."

Long before he was the guy with five consecutive championships in NASCAR's premier division, he was a guy with a pair of barstools outfitted with lawnmower engines. He keeps them in what he calls his "warehouse," essentially a big garage where he stores items he's collected over the years. Whenever he invites the members of his No. 48 team over or a get-together, sure enough, the barstools are among the first things to get brought out.

"They'll start the damn things up, and they're out the door on them," Johnson said. "They're in the street, they're in the parking lot zooming around on these things."

In a way, it's a story that sums up the essence of Johnson, who Friday night at Wynn Las Vegas will be presented with a large trophy and even larger check for extending his unprecedented streak of titles to yet another year. This is, after all, a guy who came up racing motorcycles on dirt, who transitioned into off-road trucks, who made it big in NASCAR and dabbles every now and then in sports car events. Don't let that unruly mane and mild-mannered personality fool you -- Johnson is very much a motor head at heart, a guy who'll jump on anything if it can go fast.

Even a barstool, which proved the inspiration for his latest venture -- a video game developed by Los Angeles-based Autumn Games, in which players race all things motorized with the exception of a car. Jimmie Johnson's Anything With an Engine offers the NASCAR champion yet another opportunity to prove that he's not the mass-produced spokesperson driver that so many seem to think he is. When he first met with the game's developers, they were thinking something serious, a simulation-type racer in the vein of Gran Turismo. Johnson was thinking of his barstools, and a little more Mario Kart.

"It's so hard to find a legitimate angle when NASCAR does their own game," Johnson said. "As time went on and I looked at those barstools some more, I thought, I've got an idea. We sat down and brainstormed with these folks on it. When we first had meetings on it, they thought I was after a hard-nosed racing game. There are so many good ones, it's a very congested space, a very competitive space. I asked, 'Has anyone done this?' They said, 'The last one that's been there is Mario Kart.' So I said, 'OK, let's go.' "

Don't expect simulation-style gaming and cars with intricate setups. Johnson's game, to be released for consoles sometime in 2011, is pure fantasyland, with offbeat characters zooming around ridiculous layouts on things like lawnmowers or garbage bins. There's no No. 48 Lowe's car. Part of that approach is practical; making it a true-to-life racing game, complete with vehicles that resemble those competing on Sunday afternoons, would require going through an expensive NASCAR approvals process. But part of it also stems from Johnson himself, the crazy guy who once broke his wrist surfing on top of a golf cart, the sometimes-silly Southern California dude who likes tequila shots and drinking beer with his buddies.

People say they struggle to see it. But that Johnson is there, for anyone who really bothers to pay attention. It takes a somewhat carefree, uncomplicated guy to put his name on a carefree, uncomplicated video game, the kind that can be played by 12-year-olds who don't want to worry about camber, brake bias, or any of the other minutiae inherent to hard-core simulations. A goofy game with goofy characters racing goofy vehicles reflects a facet of Johnson's personality, even if the venture wasn't necessarily intended to do so.

"It's not a conscious effort, it really is not," he said. "I don't know how things have been lost in translation over the years. People have said it's hard to connect, hard to understand. I haven't done anything different. I'm just still me."

And he really is, as anyone who's known him throughout his time in NASCAR will tell you. The success hasn't changed him -- if anything, it's emboldened him a little, allowed glimpses of that golf-cart surfer to be seen a little more. Friday night, of course, he'll put on a tie and thank all his sponsors and give a classy speech like he's supposed to, like any driver would in that situation. But the little hints are there, in the way he drops jokes about beer into his media availabilities, in the way he gleefully needled championship rival Denny Hamlin over the final weeks of the season, in the way he's let his hair grow to lengths that would make Johnny Depp jealous.

Is he often straight-laced? Of course, because in his profession, there are times when all drivers must be, and Johnson is smart enough to realize that his composure helped him get where he is. But boring? Please. That old canard went out with the rear wing. This is a guy who celebrated after last year's banquet until the sun came up. This is a guy who's perfectly comfortable putting his name -- and his voice and likeness, eventually -- on a video game where a guy in overalls races a lawnmower.

Now, just one question: How about getting a souped-up golf cart added to the list of vehicles available in his new video game?

"That's to come," he said, likely half-joking. But who knows, maybe the player might even get to ride on top.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.