Cason Nearly Jets to a Record : Track and field: After setting 60-meter mark in Madrid on Friday, he flies across world and almost does it in the 50 meters.

Andre Cason set a world indoor record in the 60 meters Friday night in Madrid. Then he got on a jet to Los Angeles with a stop in Frankfurt, Germany.

It was a 13-hour flight and he said he slept only five hours on the plane. He arrived here at 1:30 p.m., went to his hotel room for a few hours and was soon on the starting line for the 50 meters at the Sunkist Invitational track meet Saturday night at the Sports Arena.

So, suffering from jet lag and what he said was a technically poor race, Cason won in 5.62 seconds, only one-hundredth of a second short of tying the world record held by Germany’s Manfred Kokot (1973) and former USC sprinter James Sanford (1981).

The 5-foot-7, 150-pound Cason came on after a shaky start to win in a surging finish, beating Nigeria’s Davidson Ezinwa, who finished second in 5.64.

“I’m a bit disappointed. I leaned at the (finish) line instead of running through, which is a mistake,” Cason said. “I went to the line, and I said, ‘Please nobody false start. I don’t want to do this again.’ And somebody did.

“The race was technically poor. My start was terrible. I slipped on my second step and my head popped up and I was swaying from side to side.

“I regained control of myself and started catching up with the pack. If I hadn’t leaned, I’m sure I would have run faster.”

How much faster? Cason anticipated he would have been timed in 5.60, or better. Then, he added: “If good things would have happened, I would have been driving away in a Jeep.”

That was the prize for anyone setting a world record at the meet.

Cason, who was ranked fifth in the world in 1991 in the 100 meters, didn’t seem to be overly upset by barely missing a world record.

“I arrived doubting my ability just a bit, but I went to my hotel room and said, ‘I’ll do the best I can,’ ” he said.

“Things that could go wrong did go wrong. I had no clean uniform and had to do some laundry.”

Then, while still groggy from his long flight from Madrid, he cleaned up on the field.

Cason, who is trained by UCLA assistant track coaches John Smith and Art Venegas, has high expectations this year.

“I expect a lot out of myself: a gold medal in the 100-meter dash at the Olympic Games,” Cason said, adding that he concluded his indoor season Saturday night.

“There are only two important races, the Olympic trials and Olympic Games. I feel that I’m a better outdoor sprinter than indoors because I have more room to work with.”

Cason, who lives in Tampa, Fla., will spend much of his time here this year while training at UCLA with Smith, a sprint coach, and Venegas, a weight coach.

Cason seems confident that he will set outdoor, as well as indoor, records. He has lowered the 60-meter indoor record twice in two weeks, 6.45 seconds in Ghent, Belgium, and then 6.41 in Madrid.

Asked about his plans for today, Cason smiled and said: “I’ll be in bed. I’m so sore it’s ridiculous.”