Nike Oregon Project athletes expected to spice up Friday's House of Track indoor meet

The track to be used for the 2016 World Indoor Track & Field Championships gets its baptism of fire Friday in a high-performance meet.

Nike Oregon Project athletes Matthew Centrowitz, Jordan Hasay, Suguru Osako and Shannon Rowbury, and Mexican professional Pablo Solares are expected to race.

Things get underway at 5 p.m. with the developmental pole vault. The first high-performance event will be the women's high jump at 5:30.

The meet will take place at the House of Track, the converted warehouse at 2400 NW Front in which organizers have set up the track that will be moved to the Oregon Convention Center in time for the USA Indoor Championships and World Indoor Championships in March.

Admission is free, but attendance will be capped if necessary by the building's 1,600-person capacity.

Best events appear to be the men's 3,000 meters, in which Centrowitz, Osako and Solares are entered, and the women's mile and 3,000. Hasay and Rowbury are entered in both.

Oregon Project coach Alberto Salazar has conducted several training seasons at the House of Track. He gave the new track a rave review.

"We're excited about it," Salazar said. "The track is very fast. I mean it's really, really fast."

Salazar said he had trouble reining in Olympic silver medalist Galen Rupp.

"I kept telling him to slow down," Salazar said. "He was telling me, 'No, this feels really good.'"

Salazar said the track doesn't have has much bounce as other indoor tracks.

"Boston University has a fast track," Salazar said. "You feel a bounce there almost like a basketball floor. On this one, you don't feel the bounce. It feels a little harder when you're running on it. It's different, but it's fast."

The TrackTown USA organizers have been putting together a winter series of meets at the House of Track on the fly.

Other high-performance meets are scheduled for Jan. 22, Jan. 29 and Feb. 5.

"Any time you do something new and try to do it quickly, it poses challenges," TrackTown USA CEO Michael Reilly said. "What's been beneficial about this is a lot of people in the corporate community, and a lot of people interested in supporting track & field have stepped in and made it happen."

Here are the entries for the meet.

Here is the schedule for the meet.