Barron tops Spring Training

The fine showing in this week's testing marked a dramatic turnaround for a team that didn't finish better than seventh last season.

"We were fortunate that we had a lot of time to run today and try out different things with the car," Barron said. "We went into this test very open minded. It showed in our positive results."

Barron's lap was more than a tenth of a second faster than Dan Wheldon's effort of 217.820 mph from Wednesday. Wheldon's Andretti Green team-mate Bryan Herta posted the third best lap of the two-day test, while Carpenter's 217.223 mph lap from Wednesday stood up for fourth overall.

"I've been fast in every session," said Wheldon who drives a Honda-powered Dallara. "Andretti Green Racing has done a great job in producing four very competitive cars that are very equal."

Andretti's other two drivers - Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan - filled out the top six. The fastest Toyota, the Chip Ganassi Racing Toyota-Panoz G Force driven by defending IRL IndyCar Series champion Scott Dixon, held down the seventh-best lap.

It was the first open test with new air boxes that reduce airflow and horsepower in preparation for more dramatic and permanent speed-reduction changes this May at Indianapolis. Still, with help from a reconfigured Homestead banking that increased as much as 14 degrees, speeds were up more than 14 mph from the pole speed for the 2003 season opener.

The IndyCar Series will hold one more open test Feb. 10-12 at Phoenix International Raceway Before the Feb. 29 opener at Homestead.