Fort Kent’s Carson Hartman had an impressive senior season of high school track last spring.

He won the Class C state title in the triple jump while placing second in the long jump, third in the 200-meter dash and fourth in the 100.

Hartman set six school records, then placed eighth in the long jump at the New England championships.

But without a modern track in Fort Kent, few of Hartman’s classmates and other townspeople ever got to see him perform.

“It’s too bad,” said Tim Farrar, an assistant track coach and boys varsity basketball coach at Fort Kent, “because we probably had the best track athlete in school history here last year, and no one could see him run.”

The school does have a track of sorts – a nonsymmetrical, 439-meter dirt circuit. It’s believed the track was built when the school was built several decades ago, but as track facilities have improved elsewhere, the Fort Kent facility quickly became antiquated – the Warriors haven’t hosted a meet since the 1980s, and its utility as a practice facility today is extemely limited.

“With our speed workouts on the dirt track, it’s tough to get splits, and in the technical events we struggle,” said Jamerson Crowley, who has been with the program for three years, the last two as head coach.

“Being in the Penobscot Valley Conference we get to run on a lot of good tracks, and the first couple of meets each year we go early and work on hurdles and relays.”

With its closest meets held 45 minutes away in Caribou and most of its meets much farther down Route 1 and I-95, the track team at Fort Kent faltered, getting down to as few as four participants in 2001. But interest has rebounded, and the team had 47 competitors last spring.

Now program supporters would like to support that renewed interest by raising money for a new track, the second stage of a three-part plan to improve several outdoor athletic facilities in Fort Kent.

Phase 1 involved moving the baseball field from near the track to a new site near the elementary school. The field will feature a grass infield – unlike its predecessor – as well as an 8-foot-high outfield fence.

The local boosters club raised nearly $16,000 to fund that phase of the project. But funding Phase 2 is quite another matter, given that the cost of a new track is estimated at between $100,000 and $150,000.

Organizers are busy preparing to pursue a variety of grant opportunities and would love to find a benefactor willing to support their project.

“We don’t look at something like this as just for the school,” Farrar said. “The whole community would get a huge benefit from this.”

In the meantime, the program lives on. School officials purchased a 50-foot rubberized “rollout runway” for jumping events a year ago, a purchase that proved pivotal in helping Hartman – now at the University of Maine – realize his state championship dreams.

“Without the rollout runway, [Hartman] couldn’t have won the triple jump,” said Crowley.

But supporters of a new track are realistic, that short of the benevolence of a Powerball winner or a similarly large contribution from elsewhere, the goal of providing a modern facility where local sprinters can thrive is likely going to be a long-distance experience.

“We have a very giving community,” Farrar said, “but I don’t know if there is a lot left to give.”

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net