Barron gets big break

Former AAR driver Alex Barron will replace Tarso Marques in the second car after impressing Roger Penske in testing recently. Also, after experimenting with Lola chassis in recent months, the team will revert to their own Penske PC27 for the foreseeable future. Barron and Al Unser Jr will both drive the previously unloved car at Toronto this weekend.

'Alex performed very well in both tests and the Penske chassis was very consistent, so we will run two Penskes in Toronto,' said team chief Roger Penske.

Barron made his debut in the CART series with Dan Gurney's AAR outfit at the beginning of 1998 and was enormously impressive for a driver only two years out of karting. He was replaced by Gualter Salles when Dan Gurney decided he needed an experienced driver to help develop the new Eagle chassis.

The American replaces former F1 driver Tarso Marques, whose performances have disappointed Penske. Originally drafted in to replace the injured Unser earlier in 1999. Marques stayed on in a second entry, but failed to make an impact.

The Penske PC27 was a revolutionary design when introduced at the start of 1998, but was unreliable, and sometimes massively off the pace. After 1999 began in similar fashion, Unser switched to the increasingly impressive Lola chassis, but the results were still disappointing. The 1994 champion hasn't won a race since Vancouver in September 1995, while Penske have been stuck on 99 wins since June 1997 and must be wondering if they will ever take their 100th CART victory.