Denny Hamlin brings a history of success to Pocono. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Q: Did Joe and J.D. Gibbs know about the fine?

Hamlin: “They did. J.D. (Gibbs) knew and then Joe (Gibbs) knew. Of course they don’t agree with it. They’re going to stick up for their driver and what not. Within a few days after them telling me what was going to happen, we were all sitting down in one room together talking about what we can do to make the sport better. I definitely think they’ve done so much research over the last couple years to get an idea of where they’re going to take this sport. It’s going to be interesting in the future to see whether all those things come out to be what they want or not.”

Q: Are we going to lose the outspoken Denny Hamlin?

Hamlin: “It’s tough to say. I don’t want to lose any more money but I just want to be myself. That’s all I can say and that’s what I’ve told them over and over. I said, ‘What if I don’t agree with something? What do you want me to say? Do you want me to lie and tell something I don’t really truly believe in because I’ve never been brought up to do that.’ And they said no but there’s different ways to do it. We got to talking about that. In the end I did see that. I think you will still see it, but it’ll be a more toned down fashion.”

Q: Do you think NASCAR should have kept the fines secret or announced them?

Hamlin: “In just my opinion and I’m not bashing anyone, but I think I would have for sure said, ‘This person is getting penalized.’ To keep it from happening again. If nobody knows, nobody is going to learn from the mistakes of others. That’s one thing that this sport is all about is learning from someone else’s mistake. For sure, in my opinion it should have been let out, but this garage is a very small family and it will get around anyway. I think that people were going to find out one way or another.”

Q: Was the fine a surprise to you?

Hamlin: “That’s the thing that I noticed is that other people before me, not to name names — Tony Stewart, have said way worse stuff than I have, way worse. Direct hits at somebody and got away with it. But the difference is that this year they said in January, ‘Listen, it’s really taking its toll on people’s outlook of the sport when you say something like that and it shows numbers of when they hear something negative, their interest level drops.’ So they said, ‘We’re going to be more aggressive when you say something that’s negative.’ Of course that’s been six months and my memory is really short so I was just gladly awoken last week.”

Q: Do all of the drivers have to say everything is great now?

Hamlin: “I just think you have to do it in a different way. I think you can be opinionated and they want you to be opinionated, it’s just that you can’t question whether it’s a fixed sport or not because the bottom line is that it’s not fixed, there’s too much out here for chance for it to be fixed.”

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Q: How do you feel about NASCAR looking at your Twitter feeds?

Hamlin: “When I started this whole Twitter thing a long time ago, I always said that I was never going to sell out and was always going to say what I wanted to say on it and this, that and the other. The more followers you get and the more people up in that tower that start following you and what you’re saying, it goes out to a lot of people and a lot of race fans. That triad of maybe 35,000 or so that follow me, 30,000 of them are true race fans that watch the sport week in and week out. They are the heartbeat of our sport and I guess they don’t need me influencing them and saying that we need to work on a lot of things.”

Q: Is it important for the fans to believe there is a place where you can be yourself?

Hamlin: “I think that’s one of the places that you can be, but this is a place, I’m in a position where I’m always, no matter what I say, on or off the record, it’s always on the record. You just gotta continue to be a role model for the sport and be positive because honestly it does affect everyone out there.”

Q: Was your fine a big enough deterrent that you will really think about what you’re going to say now?

Hamlin: “It was big enough that for sure, if I’m in the heat of the moment I will for sure pull the reins back because it cost a lot of money to be a race car driver whether people know it or not. We do get paid well, but it’s an expensive sport to be a part of and everyone knows that. It’s not about that. I’m happy, my money is going to charity, to be honest with you. That’s money that’s going to the NASCAR Foundation and it’s going to go to several different children’s charities that I support through my foundation. So one way or another it was going to go there anyway. I’m not too upset about that. It is a wakeup call to me that we all have to be in this together.”

Q: Is it a tax deductible fine?

Hamlin: “I don’t think so.”

Q: Will NASCAR treat you like all the other drivers now that the fine is over?

Hamlin: “I hope so. Honestly, I need them on my side as much as they need me. That’s one of the things, we’re getting ready to come up on some very important tracks for us, this one being one of them and we don’t need anything happening bad to us or getting penalized for anything on the race track so we have to be smart and get ready for the Chase coming up in just a few weeks.”