Denny Hamlin Refuses to Back Down From Controversial Remarks That Triggered $75,000 in NASCAR Fines

Back in 2016, when NASCAR fined Tony Stewart $35,000 for warning that NASCAR’s lax enforcement of lug-nut rules was a safety hazard, Denny Hamlin publicly backed Stewart’s rights. In fact, as a member of NASCAR’s nine-driver council, Hamlin helped the group pool their own money to pay Stewart’s fine for him. He understood it all, far better than many, since he himself was fined a combined $75,000 over two separate incidents – one in 2010, one in 2013. And when Jeff Gluck reminded him of the same, he put on the council hat again and didn’t backtrack a single word he said decades ago.

“Softies, softies, I mean, come on. I mean, by the way, both of those statements are true. I don’t know what the hell we’re talking about.”

The first penalty came as part of NASCAR’s “secret fines,” after Hamlin’s win at Michigan International Speedway’s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 on June 13, 2010. Hamlin led 123 of 200 laps, but with him holding close to a 10-second lead, NASCAR threw a debris caution with 15 laps to go. He won anyway, then told reporters at the next race in Sonoma that “this is show business”.

On X, he doubled down to Gluck: “I mean when a guy is in the wall.. and of course people wanna see a caution. Not a fake one tho.”

The result was a hefty $50,000 fine, as Hamlin suggested. In 2012, the body subsequently put an end to undisclosed fines, with Hamlin’s case at the center of the arguments against it.

So Denny was apparently fined $50k for this tweet calling out the fake debris cautions back in 2010.

If you’re ever worried about the state of NASCAR leadership today, just remember it could always be worse. https://t.co/FrJJ74WmRy pic.twitter.com/MnBh5LrOZy

— andrew (@ham11in) June 11, 2026

Three years later, Hamlin got into trouble again.

“I don’t want to be the pessimist, but it did not race as good as our generation five cars. This is more like what the generation five was at the beginning,” he said, upon being asked what he thought of the new Gen-6 era car after the race at Phoenix in March 2013.

NASCAR fined him $25,000 for violating Section 12-1, “actions detrimental to stock car racing”. Hamlin initially vowed not to pay and threatened to appeal, and then withdrew it. For the sanctioning body, the remarks crossed the bounds, as Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president for competition, said, “We give (drivers) quite a bit of latitude, but you can’t slam your racing, you can’t slam your product”.

But Hamlin still calls both comments accurate, and the sport around him has shifted enough that neither would likely draw a fine today.

When NASCAR now lets drivers say what they think and get away with it

During the 2022 Cup Series playoffs, after his car unexpectedly burst into flames at Darlington Raceway, Kevin Harvick unloaded publicly.

“I’m sure it’s just crappy parts on the race car like we’ve seen so many times. They haven’t fixed anything. It’s kind of like the safety stuff. We just let it keep going and keep going. The car started burning and as it burned the flames started coming through the dash.”

NASCAR’s Next Gen rollout had already produced repeated concerns. The new car relied heavily on single-source parts to reduce costs instead of teams building custom components, but reliability became a talking point. Through only 27 races of the 2022 season, at least four cars had caught fire.

Harvick’s criticism was harsh, direct, and public. NASCAR took no disciplinary action, and the same trend appeared in the following years. Martin Truex Jr. openly criticized NASCAR’s aerodynamic package on short tracks such as Martinsville and Richmond, repeatedly describing the product as poor and arguing that passing had become nearly impossible. Truex bluntly called the package “terrible.”

Instead of fines, NASCAR openly acknowledged that the short-track package needed improvement. That’s the biggest difference. Back in Denny Hamlin’s era, criticism became penalties. Today, criticism often becomes conversation. And maybe that’s exactly the sport Denny Hamlin was asking for all along.

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