In February 1996, Ken Stone of San Diego County took advantage of America Online’s plant-your-own home-page service and launched the precursor to masterstrack.blog. Inspired by a Listserve post by Canadian hurdler Jess Brewer, Ken aimed to provide a place for masters to meet, encourage each other and pursue age-group PRs.
Ken also sought to foster respect and recognition for older athletes. He called his site the Masters Track and Field Home Page. It grew and grew, added news, opinion, a few yucks, a page of links and an athlete database called the Webmaster Track Club. But it lacked a substantive meet calendar. And results were skimpy.Enter Dave Clingan of Portland, Oregon. A world-class masters middle-distance runner, Dave merged his own masters rankings site with Ken’s site in November 1999, and proceeded to develop on masterstrack.com the most extensive international meet calendar and results source in any masters medium — a Herculean task.
The calendar eventually was dropped (as USATF and others provided searchable meet lists). In April 2018, Ken began blogging at masterstrack.blog, leaving masterstrack.com as an archive for the ages.This site is completely independent and unofficial. We have many friends in USA Track & Field and World Masters Athletics and link to many of their services, such as USA masters rankings and the sport’s online museum (mastershistory.org). But we aren’t an arm of these groups.
Welcome to masters track. Enjoy masterstrack.blog!