FAYETTEVILLE — Everyone was rooting for Wallace Spearmon, and Spearmon delivered again, this time in world-record form.

Spearmon, a former fourtime national champion at Arkansas, broke the world record in the 300-meter race at the Tyson Invitational on Friday at the Tyson Track Center in front of a crowd of 3, 924. Spearmon won in 31. 88 seconds, beating the previous mark of 32. 19 set in 1989 by Brazil’s Robson da Silva.

With the record, Spearmon earned a $ 25, 000 bonus from Tyson. The 300 is a seldom-run event that Spearmon ran competitively for the first time.

“My name is in the [record ] books now,” said Spearmon, 21. “Hopefully, I can put my name in the books again.”

Spearmon carried the first 200 in 20. 8 seconds, just off the pace he and his coach had wanted him to run, and he closed strong, finishing just ahead of former Florida standout Kerron Clement, a 400 specialist.

“My coach [Lance Brauman ] told me to go out strong and try to eat up the field and see what I had left on the backstretch,” Spearmon said. “It hurt. I’m hurting right now.”

As Spearmon rounded the back turns, the partisan Arkansas crowd stood and hollered for him. When he broke the tape and his time flashed on the timing boards, the crowd erupted.

“It felt like I was at home ; it felt like I had my Arkansas jersey on again,” Spearmon said.

Tyson Foods Chairman John Tyson signed Spearmon’s name to the oversized cardboard check at the finish line.

“I’m going to have to see if my mom will let me spend any of it, but I doubt it,” Spearmon joked.

Former Arkansas national champion Veronica Campbell blew away the field in the women’s 60, winning in 7. 04 seconds. It was well off the world record time of 6. 92, but Campbell won easily, beating runner-up Me’Lisa Barber by. 06.

Tyson Gay, who won the NCAA 100 national title in 2004 for Arkansas, finished second to two-time Olympic silver medalist Terrence Trammell. Trammell ran 6. 555 and Gay 6. 559.

Gay uses the indoor 60 to work on his starts for the outdoor 100, his specialty. He said Trammell beat him off the start, but by the finish, Gay was closing rapidly on Trammell.

“I’m very pleased with the race,” Gay said. “It was a great improvement. This is supposed to be my only indoor meet, my last one.

“ It was all about working on my start.”

The Arkansas fans did have a disappointment when former Arkansas star Allistair Cragg stepped off with two laps remaining in the 3, 000.

“Just a bad day,” said Cragg, who now runs for the Ireland national team. “I tried to run through it. I wasn’t comfortable.” Former Arkansas State standout Jeff Hartwig won the pole vault competition

1 with a height of 18 feet, 8 / 4 inches. Hartwig is the American record holder with 19-9. While the professionals’ quest for the $ 25, 000 bonus held much of the audience’s attention, the Razorbacks had a successful day qualifying athletes for the NCAA Championships in March. Arkansas had three runners finish in automatic qualifying times in the 5, 000, and Said Ahmed had a provisional qualifying time in the mile run.

Arkansas has some more chances at qualifiers when the college portion of the Tyson Invitational concludes today.