The Home Depot Center in Carson, California (near L.A.), once was touted as a place for all levels to host track meets. I got overly excited when I first heard about it in May 2003. Since then, the Home Depot folks have shown their true colors: green and more green. Last year, for example, the HDC booted masters planning to hold the USATF Western Regional Masters Championships — in favor of a pro lacrosse game. Now the Home Depot has unveiled plans for a relays-only meet open to all levels — kids to geezers on March 30-31. But I suspect it’s merely a money-making ploy.

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Rochelle Stevens, a two-time Olympian and relay gold medalist, has the masters bug. On Monday, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that she’s returning to track with a goal of making the 2008 Olympic team. Short of that, she wants to lower the longstanding W40 world record at 400 meters: 53.68 by Chile’s Sara Montecinos in 1994. The Olympic Trials qualifying standard should do it. In 2004, it was 52.50. She said: “There are a lot of young women still not running as fast as I used to on a bad day. I’m not going out there to whip up on everybody, but I’ll do my best. I feel confident I can make it.”

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USATF and the Millrose Games have announced that Gail Devers will compete in the Millrose 60-meter hurdles. But the news release failed to mention a salient fact — Gail (a new momma) is now 40 years old! She’ll be a slam dunk to beat the listed W40 American and world records in the event: 8.71 seconds WR and 9.08 American. Jon Hendershott of Track & Field News realized the momentous nature of the W40 milestone, however, reporting on her return from outdoor season maternity leave. The meet is Feb. 2. Go Gail!

Marc Grasso (aka Dr. Track) of New York state is taking a plunge as an online publisher of track and field (and related sport) articles, and is looking for athletes and coaches to submit articles for listing. The cool part (if it pans out): You get paid something every time someone downloads your article. Marc writes: “We strongly believe that one of the best ways to give to the improvement of our sport is by coaches sharing their knowledge and experience with other coaches, athletes, and other interested parties. The two primary ways to do this is by making a presentation at a clinic and by writing an article. Have you ever considered sharing your knowledge with others by writing an article or two (or more)?”

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The Los Angeles Times telegraphed the news a few days ago, but now it’s official: The World Anti-Doping Agency (and therefore the IAAF and WMA) is revisiting its draconian drug war. A war on innocent athletes more than cheats. If the new rules take effect next year, let’s hope they grandfather in for masters like Neil Griffin, whose fight against a doping suspension continues. (Of course, WMA could chuck the overreaching drug rules now if it wanted. It just chooses to kiss IAAF butt instead.)

Ed Whitlock refuses to slow down! Running at this all-comers meet yesterday in Toronto, the marathon legend shattered the listed M75 world age-group record in the indoor 1500 by six seconds, going 5:31.23. The old record was 5:37.28 by Sweden’s Rune Bergman in 2000. Ontario’s Doug Smith, who shared the great news, also wrote: “Ed was quick to mention (Earl Fee’s) fine 5:41 WR in the M75 mile that he ran in 2003, which Ed felt was the superior performance. Nice sportsmanship!”

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Professor Rick Hoebeke, our favorite insect expert, sent complete results from Hartshorne, held Saturday at his school (Cornell). He writes: “Needless to say, we had a spectacular day here in Ithaca, NY. Tremendous turnout of runners, and exceptional times by the elites. John Hinton (NC) winning the men’s 40-49 elite race (4:21), Alisa Harvey (VA) smashing the Hartshorne women’s masters record by more than 10 seconds (4:51), and Steve Chantry (VA) winning a close one in the Men’s 50-59 elite mile (4:46).” He also got a kick out of reading about Kevin Forde’s kick on the blog I mentioned. Rick writes: “I read with delight Kevin Forde’s first hand account in the blog. He was one of our newcomers this year and I think he had a good time; he’s a talented and upcoming Masters track guy! He will be back.”

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Results aren’t up, but this note on a polevaultpower.com message board bespoke of some M45/M50 record attempts at the annual Pole Vault Summit this weekend in Reno, Nevada: “Both Paul Babits and Gary Hunter jumped great and attempted new age group indoor records but were not successful. At 11:19 pm (this pit was considerably behind schedule) I took my last jump attempting my age group record but was also unsuccessful. The place was all but closed down. The runways and pits on each side were already half torn down. Thanks to vaultmd, a metal tape was retrieved and 3 officials were found for possible certification. But alas, to no avail.”

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Kevin Forde took second to John Hinton in the elite men’s race at Hartshorne on Saturday night in Ithaca, New York, but was especially proud of holding off world record holder and world masters champ Anselm LeBourne. Thanks to the miracle of Google’s blog search, I can pass along Kevin’s account of his Hartshorne experience. Kevin wrote of his finish: “I’d worked too damn hard to relinquish second now and (despite) the fact I was about to run 4 seconds faster than I did last week at The Armory I held him off to claim second in 4:29.46 while Anselm clocked 4:29.59.”

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Ardell Chester “A.C.” Linnerud of North Carolina, who introduced the weight pentathlon to masters track, died Friday, according to a report on the USATF Associations listserve on Yahoo Groups. A.C., who was about 75, helped Bob Boal with the Southeastern Masters Track and Field Championships in his home of Raleigh, N.C., and on April 7, 1974, he added the weight pentathlon to the meet. It became so popular that it now has its own USATF and WMA world championships. (A feast after the meet also became a tradition.) A.C. also helped devise scoring tables for the weight throw (with help from the famed deca-table man, Gary Purdy).

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