Ran sprints on cinder tracks in Philly area in the 60's including the Penn Relays, Villanova stadium, St. Joe's, Temple, high school fields.
Lane 1 anywhere was always the slowest, got to be like beach sand chewed up from distance runners hugging the rail, while the middle/outside lanes were faster (firmer). A soaking rain before a meet made every lane slow. But the track was at it's best (hard & firm) about a day after the water dried but only if it was rolled/packed and dragged. Lane chalk sorta disappeared later in meets, but you could still make it out at speed.
Sprint relay takeoff marks for legs 2-3-4 were usually counted off and scrapped into the lane.
Sometimes we didn't have blocks and dug little holes with our long spikes at the starting line. Flats were useless for meets, fine for training. And I recall that shin splints were less common on cinders.
Planted my face/chest, arms/legs on a finish line lean a number of times, not fun. Ya skim a short bit, bleed, then pick the gravel out.
I recall seeing cinders kicked up and still airborne about 10 yards behind an old school flash named Bill "Peanut" Gaines in a 100 once, needless to say I wasn't in that final.
LJ, TJ, and HJ runways and approach were of the same cinder surface.
Last cinder track I ran on was at Quantico Marine Base in VA, home of the old Quantico Relays, but believe they resurfaced that now. Priority was $ for trainin ammo over sports.
This also takes me back to those old wooden indoor board tracks with the steep, high banked turns. Some were 12-14 laps per mile. Now that was a contact sport, and the chewed up wood splinters were worse than cinders on a fall, ending up like a porcupine. Or you'd catch a short spike and launch off the outside lane on the banked turn and end up landing in the 3rd-4th row of seats.
Good memories, though my best time in the 100 now is "Tuesday".