POWERADE TRACK NOTEBOOK: NEW TRACK TO DEBUT AT MEET.

Byline: Kirby Lee Staff Writer

The world's first convertible indoor running track will make its debut at the Powerade indoor track and field championships. The appearance at Staples Center on Feb. 11 is expected to be the first of many stops for the state-of-the-art track.

The unit can be converted from a four-lane 160-yard banked oval to a six-lane 200-meter layout with adjusted banking and features Mondo's new Super X-High performance energy-return surface and revolutionary high-tensile strength aluminum chassis.

After the Staples Center meet the track will be moved to the Spruce Goose Dome in Long Beach for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships on Feb. 23-24. It will be the first time a 200-meter indoor track will be available on the West Coast.

Next year, there are plans for the track to be used for youth, high school and collegiate competitions in January and February. Negotiations are also under way for the track to be used for a revival of the San Diego indoor meet.

Skip Stolley, meet director and chairman of the Los Angeles Track and Field Organizing committee, the group that is promoting the Staples Center meet, has applied for a grant from the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles to cover the cost of the $840,000 track.

In return, Stolley proposes to give naming rights to the AAF and to make the track available for AAF-sponsored meets and ``programming that we create.'' It's part of a campaign to make indoor track a recognized Southern Section sport.

``There is definitely a demand,'' Stolley said. ``This is the hotbed of high school track and field. Athletes are training with their coaches under the cover of darkness and competing in out-of-state meets in Boston, Pocatello and Nebraska. We think we can give the sport a jump start.''

The AAF, a nonprofit organization created out of surplus funds from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, has sponsored the L.A. Invitational high school competition for the past three years and provided $20,000 for this year's meet.

Would the LATFOC go as far as lending the track to the rival L.A. Invitational at the Sports Arena to replace its aging wooden-board track?

``That's a completely different animal,'' Stolley said. ``I don't know why it would not be impossible but I think that would be largely up to the AAF.''

Pat Escobar, AAF vice president of grants and projects, said ownership and use of the Staples Center track would be at the discretion of the LATFOC if the grant proposal is approved, at the earliest at the AAF Board of Directors' meeting in June.

--Overnight makeover: The changeover from hockey to basketball has been accomplished in less than two hours at Staples Center. The change from hockey to track will take a bit longer.

A Kings game will be held Feb. 10, the night before the Powerade meet, at 7:30 p.m. Workers are expected to begin removing seats and the dasher boards from the rink at about 11:30.

Assembly and installation of the track is not expected to begin until 3 a.m. on the morning of the meet. It will require four 54-foot flatbed trucks to transport the 77-ton track to the Staples Center from a hangar at the Boeing Corporation where the track is under construction.

Because of the time constraints and the early-afternoon start of the high school competition, the long jump and triple jump will not be contested at this year's meet. It takes at least two hours alone during the delicate procedure to install the pits and the sand for the events.

``If the Kings games started at 1 p.m., we would have had a much wider window to work with,'' Stolley said.

--Breaking tradition: USC doesn't field an intercollegiate team in indoor track but Trojans coach Ron Allice has petitioned the NCAA to allow sprinter Angela Williams and pole vaulter Dennis Kholev to compete in the NCAA indoor championships.

Williams and Kholev, who will compete in the Staples Center meet, each achieved NCAA qualifying marks last weekend.

Williams, the two-time defending NCAA 100-meter outdoor champion, won the 50 meters in the L.A. Invitational in 6.17 seconds, the fastest time in the world and the ninth best by an American.