This was the year that everything was supposed to be different in NASCAR. New rules and new attitudes coupled with changes to the car were intended to make the Sprint Cup series bigger, badder and better in 2010.

Yeah, how’s that working out for ya?

Three races in, and it is beginning to look like more of the same. TV ratings are still down, attendance is sagging and Jimmie Johnson is beating the brakes off of everyone.

He’s not the points leader — Kevin Harvick is, thanks to a 35th-place finish by Johnson in the season-opening Daytona 500. But Johnson has won the last two races and proven the ol’ Ric Flair adage that “to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.”

Early on, no one has been able to beat the man.

I’m not going to get into the whole luck thing that Harvick started two weeks ago after the California race. I think in racing, you make your own luck, and no one is better than the No. 48 bunch at making its own good luck.

Johnson got off pit road just ahead of the leader to stay on the lead lap at California, which eventually enabled him to win. Lucky? Maybe, but it didn’t guarantee him anything.

At Las Vegas last Sunday, he caught some opportune cautions to reel in Jeff Gordon. But it was the call by Johnson and crew chief Chad Knauss to go with four tires instead of two with 35 laps remaining that showed why the No. 48 crew is so much better at making its own luck.

Gordon gambled that being out front in clean air with only two fresh tires would negate Johnson’s rubber advantage. That gambled paid off for about 15 laps, but the difference in two versus four tires was too great over the length of the remaining run for Gordon, even with a dominant car, to hold off Johnson.

Harvick may call the No. 48 lucky, but that crew consistently gets those calls right.

And that is exactly what NASCAR doesn’t need right now.

There is no drama in Jimmie Johnson kicking the bejesus out of the competition again. This is the same story that has been told over the last four years, and look what has happened to NASCAR over the last four years — poor ratings and sagging attendance.

The series needs some fresh storylines. Jamie McMurray winning at Daytona in a new ride was a storyline that NASCAR needed. Too bad it’s gotten swallowed up in the Johnson tidal wave since, and the fact that McMurray managed to take himself and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya out at Vegas hasn’t helped his cause.

Sure, Johnson has some star power. He and his crew are the best in the business. If I had the option to take Jimmie Johnson or the field, I would take Johnson and really like my odds.

But it’s an all-too-familiar refrain for weary race fans. The Johnson-Knauss combination has become way too good for the competition.

And that’s just not good for NASCAR.