EUGENE - If you thought 2008 was great, just wait until 2012.

The Eugene ’08 co-chairs say the U.S. Olympic track and field trials will be even better when they return to Hayward Field in four years.

“We have really exceeded many of our expectations as far as the way the event has been embraced by the entire community, the state of Oregon and the track and field community throughout this country,” said Greg Erwin, a co-chair and past president of the Oregon Track Club, which headed Eugene’s 2005 bid to host the trials.

“We couldn’t be more happy with the way this has all turned out.”

The eight days of competition drew more than 167,000 people inside Hayward, including a stadium record 21,176 Sunday.

But that doesn’t include the thousands who didn’t have tickets but visited the festival surrounding the track.

Vin Lananna, a co-chair and University of Oregon head coach for cross country and track and field, said Eugene is the ideal location to host the trials.

“I think the fans have been treated to something very special this week,” he said. “But more importantly, I think the athletes had a great experience here. I hope they had, and that was our whole objective in putting this thing together.”

Eugene will remain the locale for big-time meets for the next four years leading to the 2012 trials.

In addition to the annual Prefontaine Classic, Hayward will host the USA national championships in 2009 and 2011 and the NCAA national meet in 2010.

Though the event was a hit, tweaks will be made.

Lananna said the meet schedule will be changed to be more fan-friendly, and the festival will be enhanced, but not necessarily made larger.

“I’m sure the challenge for us will be, ‘how do we make it better?’ ” Erwin said. “We will clearly make 2012 better than 2008.”

But, Erwin added, there’s plenty that won’t be changed.

“The basic template has worked very, very well. If it isn’t broken, I don’t think we want to fix it,” he said.

Erwin, an Oregon graduate, said one of his favorite moments of the trials was hearing the familiar Olympic music on the opening night of the event.

“And thousands of people are streaming into a beautiful environment, and I really knew we were in store for a very special week, and it’s really turned out that way,” Erwin said.

Organizers hope to gather the momentum from the trials to continue to grow interest in the sport.

In May, Lananna said if all people had witnessed at the trials was a track meet, that an opportunity would have been squandered.

By all accounts, there were no opportunities squandered here.

“This is the momentum we’ve begun, now we need to keep rolling with it,” Lananna said.