Jeff Gordon, the new NASCAR bad boy?

In the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Gordon climbed out of his No. 24 Chevrolet after falling from third to 21st when he was spun on the final lap by Matt Kenseth only to find Kenseth walking toward him.

Kenseth said he was coming to apologize, but he never got the chance.

Gordon, still wearing his helmet and head-and-neck support, met Kenseth with a two-armed shove that drew a $10,000 fine and has Gordon on NASCAR probation until Aug. 30.

Gordon said he and Kenseth talked in the NASCAR hauler after the incident and that he doesn’t expect any animosity from that to linger into this week’s DirecTV 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

But Gordon, a four-time Cup Series champion who won both Martinsville races last year and has won four of the past six races at this track, also suggested that fans who might have been surprised by how he drove and how he reacted last weekend should know that he’s not the same guy he might have once been.

Jeff Gordon was fined 0,000 and placed on probation until Aug. 30 for shoving Matt Kenseth after last week's Food City 500.

“For years I was just so concerned with, ‘OK, what was this person going to think and what was that person going to think,'” Gordon said. “I was more caught up in that than I was in being true to myself.

“What you see today is a truer Jeff Gordon and who I really am. I’m not a robot; I have a personality and I have emotions and I have a humorous side to me and an angry side to me.”

Gordon said that when he began in NASCAR as a young driver coming from an open-wheel background in the Midwest, he felt he needed to go out of his way to win acceptance, both with fans and his fellow competitors.

“Now that I’ve established myself and I’m older and understand life a little bit more, the way for me to enjoy life and enjoy racing more is to be me,” he said. “If fans like that or don’t like that is really not what I’m out here for. I love the fans and I want them to pull for me, but I only want them to pull for me if they find something about me that is something that they like or something that they respect or appreciate.”

Before the late-race incident with Kenseth, Gordon had a run-in with Martin Truex Jr. that led to an incident in which Jeff Burton’s car was among the collateral damage.

Burton said Gordon was among the drivers who think it’s OK for them to do something but not OK for someone else to do the same thing to them.

“He (Gordon) made a conscious decision to wreck the No. 1 car (Truex), and I got wrecked because of it,” Burton said. “I don’t drive like that, and I don’t want him driving me like that. There are a lot of people here who only think about themselves.”

Gordon, who’s seventh in the Nextel Cup standings, said he understands why Burton would be upset. But after missing the Chase for the Nextel Cup last year, Gordon said he heard some critics say one reason he didn’t make the championship playoff cut might have been because he was not aggressive enough.

“Looking at last year and what, as a driver, I could have done different or better at times to get us into the Chase or be in position to win more races, I felt like there were some times when I could have been a little bit more aggressive. We’ve seen a lot of these young guys come into the sport and be more aggressive, and I think that you can learn something from that,” Gordon said.

Whatever the right formula is for Martinsville, Gordon and his Hendrick Motorsports team certainly seem to have that figured out.

“Obviously we like Martinsville, and Martinsville seems to like us,” said Gordon, who has seven career wins at this track. “Martinsville is a great opportunity for us to run good and maybe get back some of those points that we lost at Bristol. I definitely am not coming in with enemies and certainly throughout the race I will not be trying to make any.”