LANE CONDITION
Length: 39ft House Tournament Shot 6:1 and 47 ft WTBA Paris 3:1
Volume: 26ml and 20 ml
Type (THS, Sport Pattern etc):
COMMENTS
Likes: Controls the midlane really well. Ridiculous impact in the deck!
Dislikes: Not as clean through the front as I expected, but once worked out, no problem!
The Torrid by Radical Bowling utilises the core from the legendary Track Heat, wrapped in a traction mica pearl cover. (I could stop the review right there for some of you, couldn’t I..?) People loved the Heat series and everybody’s had a particle pearl or traction mica pearl ball that was solid gold. It’s a match made in somewhere approximating bowling lab heaven.
The core characteristics give this ball control of the midlane. It’s lower differential numbers ean that the flares stay tighter together, conserving rotational (and especially precessional) forces, keeping the ball roll alive longer. (More on this later…)
I like to keep test balls in pretty standard layouts. I laid the Torrid out with a 5†pin to PAP, 4½†CG to PAP that’s roughly 55° x 5†x 35° dual angle. Pin is below my bridge, with the CG slightly right of the grip centre. It’s something you’d see on any rack in league.
I started testing this ball on the Bathurst Pit Stop Pattern a higher volume tournament shot, based on a house shot. I had trouble initially with this ball and pattern. The very handsome red and gold cover (with that pretty mica sparkle) read the lane earlier than I expected and I had to make a move inwards to pick up more oil. The low flare core then wouldn’t let the ball turn the corner. Then I engaged my brain, moved right a hair, straightened up my hand and bumped up the speed a hair so I looked more like a “normal†bowler. BAM! The ball was money. I had a smooth rolling look that just hit indecently hard for the small number of boards I was covering. With about 7 boards of backend, I was throwing scouts (not rolling scouts – throwing them!), slapping soft 10’s out and blowing 5 pins into next week. This was very impressive considering how straight I was throwing it.
Last week I took it to Canberra, but couldn’t use it there. (Anybody want to read an Ebonite Maxim review? OUCH!) I got to throw it on the Bathurst house shot yesterday. Again, when I kept my hand quieter and threw it more like a stroker, the ball just carved it up. Using the Torrid on the house shot was just cheating with it’s strong midlane and continuous strong arc motion on the backend. Give it some room to the right and the world is your oyster.
I also got to throw it on WTBA Paris (47’ – 20ml – 3:1) and it gave me a very good look on the fresh with pilot error being it’s biggest drawback. (Man, I need practice!)
Overall – the Radical Torrid is a very interesting ball. It hooks in a different shape to a lot of releases, rolling very sweetly and hitting extremely hard. This ball is going to travel with me to tournaments, almost regardless of the pattern. The Torrid is more angular than a solid, with more midlane than a pearl. It’s a really useful and quite unique piece in my kit.
Jason Doust is the proprietor of Bowler’s Edge Pro Shop in Canberra, Australia. In the interests of brand independence, Jason is no longer affiliated with any ball company.
Ken MacLachlan of KM Bowling Supplies kindly asked me to review this ball. Contact Ken at kmbs@internode.net for Australian wholesale enquiries or your local pro shop for retail enquiries.
