It's not fines, but secrecy, that is most troubling

In many ways, this truly is a more open and accessible NASCAR. In the spring of 2009 executives from the sanctioning body held a series of town hall-style meetings at the sport's research and development center. This past winter, chairman Brian France made the rounds from shop to shop, sitting down with drivers and owners. Two years ago NASCAR formed a fan council so spectators could submit ideas, something that impacted the moves to the rear wing and standardized start times. When owners wanted to sit down among themselves this week and try to hash out a few issues, NASCAR approved the plan.

That's a long way from how it used to be, when officials in Daytona Beach seemed to take offense when a driver or owner had a suggestion or a complaint. Jeff Burton, a stalwart on NASCAR's premier series for 17 seasons, has seen the transformation firsthand.

"It went from, 'Yes, we will talk to you, but really don't want to hear it,' to 'Anytime you want to call, call,' to at times, them calling me. And even today, the willingness of NASCAR to get a group of people together and have a conversation about something is bigger than it has ever been. The things they are doing today with the town hall meetings and all that, that didn't happen. That stuff just never happened," Burton said Friday at Pocono Raceway, site of Sunday's Sprint Cup event.

"I think the new generation of NASCAR is much more open to listening to the ideas. I had a conversation with [NASCAR VP for competition] Robin Pemberton last week, and I said things to him that were very frank and very to the point. I walked off and I thought I wouldn't have been able to do that 15 years ago, but I felt perfectly comfortable doing it because I felt perfectly comfortable with him, and his willingness to listen to me, and his willingness to share his opinion with me and disagree with me or agree with me. I think it has changed a lot. They are very open right now, very receptive to ideas and opinions. They aren't going to agree with everything, nor should they, but they are very receptive."

To a certain point. NASCAR didn't come across as open or receptive at all this week when news emerged that the sanctioning body had secretly fined two drivers for comments that series officials deemed were damaging to the sport. Friday at Pocono, the guilty parties fessed up. One was Ryan Newman, who isn't exactly known as a firebrand but has made skewering remarks about the risks of restrictor-plate racing, particularly at Talladega Superspeedway, where last fall a big crash left him upside down on his roof. The other was Denny Hamlin, who earlier this year intimated that NASCAR was manipulating the ends of races with haphazard debris cautions, and has been less than enthusiastic about potential changes to the Chase.

Now, a sports league fining competitors for comments it deems inappropriate is far from groundbreaking. Just two weeks ago, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert was fined $100,000 by the NBA for comments he made about the departure of LeBron James. Outspoken Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is fined more frequently than a habitual traffic offender. Former Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick was once fined $15,000 by the NFL for criticizing officials, and former Houston Astros pitcher LaTroy Hawkins was fined an undisclosed amount in 2009 for comments he made about an umpire. In the grand scheme, what NASCAR did to Newman and Hamlin wasn't malicious -- it was routine.

But it's the secret part that bothers people. In his blog on this site earlier in the week, NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said the fines needed to be viewed similar to a meeting in the Sprint Cup hauler, something no one ever talks about in detail. He added that repeating the offending remarks would serve no purpose, except to potentially embarrass those drivers' teams and sponsors. And yet, injecting the element of secrecy winds up casting the sanctioning body, and not the drivers involved, in a poor light.

• NASCAR Says: Working together for the good of the sport (Continued)