Punched up the Droid Pearl Sunday afternoon and immediately put it on the wood. This is at a different house than my usual videos. The house in this video is Red Apple Lanes in Bartlesville, OK; the house that my dad's shop is located in. They have wood lanes that were resurface last summer, but still have quite a lot of friction in the track area. The pattern used was the USBC White Pattern #2, as stated in the video. I have lost some weight in recent months and struggled with my fit for most of the day, it was really giving me a dickens of a time (you'll probably see it in the video, for those that are more astute.) When I came out clean, it was 10 in the pit almost every time, period. Had some carry issues just due to playing such a tight line on a decent volume of oil, but overall it kicked the corners pretty easily. On to the good stuff.....

I started trying to throw a little more inside for the most part to avoid the track area, just because past experience at this house told me to do so. The Droid Pearl was clean through the front, as was expected since I was throwing it in the thick of the oil. It didn't read very hard in the mids, but did start to read towards the latter stages, then when it hit the friction it made a strong but controllable move to the pocket. I was very impressed that it didn't make a big jump left when it hit the dry boards, because I have that issue a lot when throwing shiny pearl balls; especially those with a little bit higher Rg. I tried throwing the Pearl Panther on the same inside line and it was an easy 4-5 boards stronger. It hit on the left/middle of the headpin when thrown on the same line, but not quite brooklyn.

In the 2nd stage of the video I tried swinging it out more, this is when I was really impressed. At this house when I try to swing most balls they end up dying due to the heavy friction in the track area; I didn't experience this with the Droid pearl at all. It made a little stronger read in the mids due to the added friction, but made an even more pronounced move to the pocket. I had a few shots that didn't make it back because the pattern used does have a little oil on the outside boards, but this was expected with the polished pearl cover; it's not going to have a huge amount of recovery with the OOB finish from WAY outside. I didn't get a chance to throw many shots on this line because the owner of the center sold my lane to some open bowlers (can't blame him because I was bowling for free lol.) I was hoping to get some more comparisons with the Droid Solid and the Pearl Panther, but wasn't able due to time constraints.

Overall I am very impressed with the Droid Pearl after the first outing. I was bowling without the scorers on, so I don't know what I shot; I know I had 5-6 in a row a few times though. It was great on these lanes with heavier friction and I could definitely see me using that ball all 3 games if I were throwing league at that house. I hope to get some time to go to my usual house this week to throw it on heavier volume synthetics. I imagine you'll see a lot more of the skid/flip reaction on the lower friction and heavier volume.