That is not always impossible. I kind of "lost" Mo for awhile around the early 2000's while I went thru a disconnect from the game for a couple of years. I know that his early stuff was kind of niche for a few releases until in typical Mo fashion, his grassroots campaigning and never ending seminar schedule finally kicked in and got the word out that these were unique balls and maybe you should try one to see what you think.
I had the privilege to go to the original Super School in Detroit in 1997. The organizer had Mo as the ball motion/fit guru for the week. It was a great week. A who's who of coaches like Jowdy, Borden (the lead instructor), Edwards, Spigner, Hoppe, Fallgren (then the Team USA coach), and a couple of "newer" names in the coaching circles like Marianne DiRupo and Carolyn Dorin-Ballard.. Newer like in great players, newer to the coaching cycle. Mo did a motion seminar and it was when he was involved with Faball with the 3D Offset's and the Blue pearl version(can't think of the name right now). It was an entertaining seminar to say the least and Mo just was awesome with some of his expressions and metaphors.
Funny point here: Mo's son was maybe about 10-11 years old at the time and was helping dad out on the overhead projector with the transparencies (remember, it's 1997). Every now and then Mikey would get "busted" doing something an 11 year old would do like make shadow puppets behind his dad's ear or face. Funny stuff! Mo had him bowling already and he would go down and throw when there were open lanes or free time. I lost track of his kid and I wonder if he kept bowling or not.
Those original Star Trak's had a good reputation as being in central Ohio some of the light blue ones in the early 80's made there way onto ball returns down here when needed.
I'm not sure when Star Trak became Track, but I'm guessing somewhere around 1988-89 as Star Trak had put out the Equalizer which had a large over sized weight block sometime around 1988. A friend of mine had one and he was not too impressed with it. I crossed with Phil in a tournament in the Akron area at Fred Borden's place around the fall of 1989 and he was throwing a different black Equalizer with the Track Inc logo on it and not the Star Trak Equalizer. We talked a little after the block as Phil was a pretty avid tournament bowler back then and we spoke about the Track balls he had as I had started working in a pro shop and was curious. I am going to guess that he went west when Columbia bought Track Inc. somewhere around 1991 or 1992 as I think the Shark might have been their first release out of San Antonio. Of course in the mid 90's with the Nuke, Critical Mass, Code Red, and onward, Track Inc started to get a good reputation among high end players for pretty reliable motion and hard hitting equipment.
Originally Wayne Webb was involved with Dynothane as he threw their gear on TV in the mid 90's when they started out on tour. The stories were that Wayne might have been a limited owner or partner to begin with. I do not know if Phil was involved yet or if he came in after Wayne got out. A friend of mine drilled a Maximum Risk and thought it was flat awesome on longer/thicker oil. I am not sure when Phil came in with Dynothane but when he did get involved, Dynothane was a "player" out on tour as they had staffers and some big name free agents throwing their stuff for awhile. Eventually Dynothane started to become an unofficial brand for Storm and I believe that is when Phil either got phased out or decided on his own to move back to San Antonio and eventually get involved with 900 Global. 900 Global was a player when he was involved also. When he left 900 Global, they went stagnant until Storm got involved the last year or so. 900 is not a division of Storm like Roto Grip is, but I think that 900 gives Storm another factory to run equipment out of, plus the independents like AMF and Seismic can still get their stuff made out of and on the market.
Mo is a different story. From what I can find on him, the Sumo was his first real involvement or the first where his name was on peoples radar. I'm sure he was around prior to that but it is hard to find much more on him prior to the Sumo. AMF was always a different player in the industry as they never had a ball factory, other companies (mainly Ebonite) did the production work of their ideas. Mo was behind a couple of different ideas and balls. Mo was involved with the Sumo, Ninja's, XS (the white Que ball), and I believe the RPM's. I think around the mid to late 90's, Mo got involved with Faball. Mo's work with Faball was the Offset Hammers and eventually the 3D Offset Hammers and their offshoots. After the industry got particle crazy and Faball was not too interested in that technology, Mo moved on. Mo did some of Track's designs namely the Freak, Mutant, and most of the offshoots all the way to the Phenom (not 100% sure on that one). At some point Mo started up MoRich with some partners and put his ideas under his umbrella. MoRich's first few releases were poured by Columbia in San Antonio like the Colossus and Onslaught. Eventually Mo got Brunswick involved and that is when MoRich had some of their best sellers like the Ravage, Annihilation, and Awesome series.
What act of fate brought Phil and Mo together was probably set in motion long. long, ago. Event though I throw Utah balls, I pay attention to these two as I feel they are some old time ball motion guys who seem to always bring something interesting to the table.
Phil didn't start the original Track. The original Track was started in Ohio in basically a garage with a guy pouring balls by hand in the 80s? (Look for old balls called Star Trak). Columbia Industries bought Track and brought the company to San Antonio. Phil headed up the Track team and the division took off.
After some issues, Phil found himself out at Columbia (roughly 2001/2002?). Phil eventually bought Dynothane from Storm as Storm owned the rights but was doing nothing with the brand. Phil started to create cores and covers with Storm before moving the brand back to Columbia in 2005 I believe.
In 2007 Ebonite bought Columbia and everything under the Columbia umbrella, and in some sort of agreement, when Phil went back to Columbia, Dynothane became part of Columbia, so the Dynothane brand went to Ebonite in the purchase. This is when Phil eventually started 900 Global. Phil took that brand and did very well before leaving and started Radical with Mo.
This is by no means a full list of everything Phil has done. He deserves a big hand for everything he has done for the bowling industry.
While I do agree with most of your post, the bold is what I think might be off. The first few releases from MoRich were the Labyrinth and Minotaur I believe. They then started coming out with the Colossus series and the Pioneer (which was an amazing enrty-level ball IMO). I was always under the assumption that once they started making the Frenzy/Onslaught/Sahara weightblock line, is when they started using Brunswick covers...
