If you have read my columns over the past several years - and I would like to thank both of you - then you know that I have a penchant for that joke, and for history.

I am a such history nerd that I managed to stick around college long enough to get a degree in it and even took a shot at teaching it to other people. My love of all things past kind of shapes the way I look at the world and perpetuates this annoying tendency that I have to put all things into historical context.

This applies to racing as well, which is why over the last few months, I have been trying to put Jimmie Johnson's career up to this point into some sort of historical perspective. Looking at the numbers, it's hard to deny Johnson's greatness.

He claimed career win No. 50 last week at Bristol, the 296th start of his Cup career. Only Jeff Gordon, Darrell Waltrip and David Pearson reached that plateau faster.

Additionally, Johnson won 22 of the 93 races run with the wing on the new car. He has won four consecutive championships, and three of the first five races of 2010. Thankfully for the rest of the field, Martinsville is next on the schedule. Oh, wait.

I like to think of myself as a NASCAR traditionalist, so this goes against everything I want to believe about the different eras in the sport, but when it's all said and done, I think history will view Johnson as the best driver in NASCAR. Ever.

Some people argue that with Johnson, it's been a matter of having the best team. I'm not going to argue that. He has a great team. But then again, so does Dale Earnhardt Jr. So did Casey Mears.

Some argue that you can't compare drivers across eras due to the difference in cars and tracks and points systems. I know that this is controversial, and I'm not saying that Johnson could have done what any of the legends of NASCAR did given their circumstances.

Looking at NASCAR's top drivers through the years - Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon - you begin to see a pattern of when they win championships. There is a wane in the careers of their contemporaries that opens a window for them to be dominant.

Petty dominated in an era when most drivers didn't race all the races. Yarborough won three straight championships when Petty's career began to decline. Waltrip came on the heels of Yarborough. Earnhardt's dominance came after Waltrip's heyday. After Gordon won his first championship, Earnhardt didn't win another.

Pearson is the only driver who doesn't really fit the pattern, but his career was different in that his Wood Brothers team primarily only ran the big money races. Don't get me wrong, I am not downplaying any of these drivers, and all of these eras have been competitive. I just don't think they are as competitive as NASCAR is now.

The "IROC-ness" - for lack of a better term - of NASCAR in the last 10 years has made it more competitive. The rules have been tightened to even the playing field. Yeah, it might suck, but it's the truth. There are so many well-heeled teams these days - Hendrick, Gibbs, Childress, Petty, Roush, Stewart-Haas and Earnhardt-Ganassi - fielding competitive cars.

In the current top-40 in the Sprint Cup standings, there are 15 drivers who have won a NASCAR national touring series title, including seven drivers who have won Cup championships (not that Bill Elliott or Bobby Labonte are threats to win anything in the near future). There are two former Indy Racing League champions (Tony Stewart and Sam Hornish Jr.) and one former CART champion (Juan Pablo Montoya).

The amazing thing about Johnson is that he has dominated in such an ultra-competitive era. Pretty good for a guy who hadn't won a NASCAR race when Gordon and Rick Hendrick scooped him up in 2001.

Johnson is one of those athletes that transcends his sport. After he's retired, he'll be one of the guys that people tell their kids about how they watched him race, not unlike Michael Jordan or Joe Montana or Wayne Gretzky. And I believe history will view him the same as those athletes are viewed.