The 28-year-old two-time Olympic gold medallist is the headline act in the seven-strong field in the women's shot put at Eugene, but Team Adams are cautious around their expectations this weekend.
The competition represents the first in Adams' northern season and she heads to the US after a couple of niggling injuries to her elbow and knee.
"We are always careful not to expect too much in the first competition," manager Nick Cowan said. "But she's in very, very good shape after a good summer.
"From her and JP's [coach Jean-Pierre Egger] point of view, it's a measure of how things are going rather than a mark of where things are at. There's enough competition there for Val to have to step up."
Adams is the only one in the field to have thrown more than 20m this year, hurling the shot out to 20.37m to win her 12th national title. China's Lijao Gong is the next best with a throw of 19.97m and only Michelle Carter (US) and Russia's Irina Tarasova (both 19.20m) have surpassed 19m.
Adams also threw 20.75m at an exhibition event at The Cloud in March and followed it with 20.02m at the Sydney Track Classic.
She's gearing up for a tilt at a fourth world title in Moscow in August - hoping to become the first female thrower to win four world titles - and will also compete at Diamond League meetings in Lucerne, Paris, London, Stockholm and Zurich.
The shot putting landscape might be a little clearer by the end of the season. Nadzeya Ostapchuk is presently serving a one-year drugs ban from the Belarus Athletics Federation after testing positive at last year's London Olympics and a sample dating back to the 2005 world championships also turned up positive after it was recently re-tested.
Her ban is due to expire around the time of the world championships but she has not yet been handed a sanction by the IAAF for either positive tests and Adams is steadfast in her view Ostapchuk should be banned for life.
"We expect the IAAF to do something but don't know what that is yet," Cowan said.
Ostapchuk was the only person to beat Adams since 2006, when she won the 2010 world indoor championships in Doha, although suspicion must now be cast on that performance.
Nick Willis had been planning to run in the men's mile but his fall in Shanghai recently tweaked a calf muscle and he has decided not to risk it and Lucy van Dalen will also miss the event because of an Achilles injury.
