Indianapolis, Feb. 13 — Less than a month after the Brahma Sports Team made a similar move, Player's Forsythe Racing will make an 11th hour switch to Reynard chassis from Lola for the 1997 PPG Cup season. The team will use its 1996 Reynard at the first race in Miami, March 2.

The change, which comes little over two weeks before the season-opening Grand Prix of Miami at the Metro-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex, is actually a return to Reynard, Forsythe's chassis of choice last season. The team will use its 1996 Reynard Mercedes-Benz race cars for the Miami opener while it awaits delivery of 1997 Reynards by mid-March for driver Greg Moore. The team will stick with Firestone tires.

The decision followed a less than encouraging performance by the Forsythe Team in a 1997 Lola Mercedes-Benz at Spring Training at Homestead, January 30 — February 1. Moore struggled with speeds at the bottom of the time sheets throughout the test and the Player's squad skipped the final day's afternoon practice altogether.

Pat Patrick's Brahma team announced a switch to Reynards for 1997 just before Spring Training. The team had run Lolas since returning to CART competition in 1995. Brahma drivers Scott Pruett and Raul Boesel shared what was then the team's only Reynard Ford-Cosworth at Spring Training but Patrick now has two 1997 models ready for the Miami race.

The Forsythe move now leaves only four teams, fielding six cars, running Lolas in 1997. Of that group, the most encouraging at Spring Training was surprisingly Richie Hearn in John Della Penna's Ralphs/Food 4 Less Lola Ford-Cosworth on Goodyear tires. Other Lola runners in 1997 include Payton/Coyne's two-car team, with Ford-Cosworth and Goodyear tires, the Dennis Vitolo SmithKline Beecham entry (Ford-Cosworth/Goodyear) and three-time 1996 race winners Tasman with their Honda-powered Lolas on Firestone tires. The latter group, with 1996 race-winning drivers Andre Ribeiro and Adrian Fernandez back behind the wheel, also was noticeably off the pace at Spring Training.

On the other hand, the switch ensures that Forsythe will ironically continue as one of the few CART teams to have raced only Reynards since the manufacturer began PPG Cup competition in 1994. Then, Jacques Villeneuve drove a Player's/Forsythe-Green Racing Reynard Ford-Cosworth to 1994 Rookie of the Year honors. Forsythe and Green split to run separate teams after the 1994 season, but both have continued to run Reynards. The only other team to have been with Reynard from the beginning is PPG Cup champions Target/Chip Ganassi Racing.

SpeedCenter Fantasy Players: note that Moore will be listed with a Reynard chassis for this season, slightly changing the numbers in our calculations.

Source: CART News Service