Jimmie Johnson
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After basically coming off of the worst season of his career on the heels of five straight championships, only a fool would believe that Jimmie Johnson will not be under enormous pressure for the duration of 2012. Or will he?
Of any driver in NASCAR, perhaps any active athlete today, Johnson appears second to none when it comes to handling stress and remaining calm. He even gets chastised for it as a criticism of his overall vanilla personality.
It doesn't matter. Johnson will be under pressure, too—more so than almost any other driver in NASCAR—until the final race ends in 2012. Most of that pressure will stem from attempting to get back to the mountain top of stock car racing.
The question is, what portion of that pressure will he actually feel and let affect his performance on the race track?