When Denny Hamlin returns to Auto Club Speedway this week, he'll find more of the SAFER barrier in the area where he crashed last year. The Southern California facility has added an additional 1,000 feet of the Steel and Foam Energy Reduction barrier inside Turn 4, according to a track spokesman. The change was made in September, six months after Hamlin sustained a broken back vertebra after crashing into an unprotected area of the wall in the track's Sprint Cup Series event last March. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver was strapped to a backboard and airlifted to an area hospital, where he was diagnosed with a compression fracture of a lumbar vertebra. More...