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MIAMI — Somewhere along the line in sports, simple success was found lacking. Even greatness was not enough. You had to be volatile or loud or goofy or controversial, or you were easily dismissed.

One championship at a time, Jimmie Johnson may be changing that.

The guy is giving unadorned excellence a good name.

What he parcels out for public consumption is not a lot more than merely being the best at what he does, but it turns out that is fine.

Sunday's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway ended NASCAR's year and marked Johnson's coronation for a third straight season championship — the only man other than Cale Yarborough in 1976-78 to fashion such a three-peat — after which Johnson declared, "Over the off-season I'm going to be drooling about a fourth."

The historic notion of his third straight makes it more and more difficult to dwell on everything Johnson is not.

He is not doing backflips off his car like Sunday's race winner and season runner-up, Carl Edwards. Johnson is not climbing chain-link fences like Tony Stewart or bowing with a theatrical flourish a la Kyle Busch.

Johnson is not a player in any of the sport's silly paint-swapping, fist-trading feuds and rivalries.

He is not the bad boy you love to hate.

He is not sporting Stewart's fireworks temper, Jeff Gordon's movie-star persona or Dale Jr.'s legendary bloodlines.

He is not any of that stuff, but here is what he is:

He is winning. And winning. And winning.

He is the best racecar driver of his time. And now, still only 33, he gets to enter the conversation when the all-time greats are debated. Only Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Gordon have won more than three overall season titles.

A three-peat in any sport is rare. Johnson's is the second in 60 NASCAR seasons. In the NFL, since 1920, it has happened twice. In baseball, since 1903, it has happened four times.

Call Johnson vanilla; his résumé is the flavor, the cherry on top. He has been called robotic, wooden and bland. You know what, though? The checkered flags and big cardboard checks speak for him colorfully enough.

In the charisma department he might be Roger Staubach singing Bing Crosby, but he is good with it.

"I'm not one that's going to sit up at night and say, 'Wow, I need to be the funny guy, or I need to be The Intimidator, or I need to do backflips,'" Johnson said. "I'm just doing my thing."

To him, the race starting is the only way to make the circus go away.

"Then finally the national anthem is over, and I get in the car," he said, describing the prerace mob scene. "And I'm like, 'Whew, put the net up so they can't take my pictures, either.' And then you go to work. Then I'm doing my job."

Some critics see Johnson as having it easy because of the big-money Rick Hendrick team. Others explain the shadow of his mentor, Gordon, for siphoning his credit. Some note that Johnson's crew chief, Chad Knaus, has been suspended for rules infractions. None of it explains three series titles in a row.

Johnson ranks only fourth in NASCAR merchandise sales and only seventh in a recent fan survey of driver awareness. The sport he dominates on the track has not embraced him off it.

Hendrick said, "I don't understand why Jimmie hasn't gotten more credit for being one of the best that's ever been in a car."

Gordon added: "You have good years and bad years. The difference between me and Jimmie is he hasn't had a bad year."