We drilled our first Top Fuel for the young man that works for me, Brad Baines. Brad is a Senior at the University of Houston and bowls for the U of H team. He is right handed, throws the ball very hard, has a nice hand motion, but does track very close to his fingers. He throws 16 pound balls.
He doesn't really have an oil ball that has a very much back end movement, so we thought we would try this ball. The layout Brad used worked well for him in 2-3 other balls, so he used the following. Pin out about 3.25 inches, 3.35 top weight. Basically, just a label shift, with the pin at 12:00 to the CG. Pin was right of his ring finger, which for Brad is about 4 inches to his PAP. The mass bias is in a strong position, or at about 80 degrees. He used a 7/8 bit to get the ball back to legal side weight, the X hole was 3 inches to the right of his grip center.
The first few games were bowled on Brunswick synthetics on fresh oil. The house is medium oily, and not known for having alot of back ends. We use Twister pins also.
The ball cleared the heads nicely, most balls do, Brad has great ball speed. Revved up pretty well in the middle third of the lane and just kept on going. This ball hooks alot! Out hooked his LRG with a similar layout by 5 boards with his feet. This ball almost seemed to quit at the pin deck though, leaving some flat 10's on what looked like going to be high flush shots. A little Storm #2 cured this problem. Ball had 2-3 feet more length and finished all the way through the pins. Hit very hard. Still reads the middle part of the lane very well.
I think Brad should have used a 6 inch low rev hole. I think this would have kept the ball from revving up quite so quickly and having more punch on the back end. I would probably not recommend the 3" hole idea to just everybody. The 3" hole helps to lower the RG of the ball, and make it rev up in the midlane. Sometimes this is good, it makes the ball use up energy more quickly for me, I like to use it on wet/dry and spotty back ends.
Top Fuel is a strong reactive resin ball, doesn't over react, comes dullish in the box. Hits very good. I think the tweeners/ladies will really like this ball on fresh oil. Plenty of power. Straighties will like it most all the time. May be too long for truly heavy oil, particle ball may be better for the straighties here. Big hook guys will probably want to shine it, but could be nice on oil for the twisters. Cover reminds me alot of the Trauma ER, takes adjustments in the same manner. This ball is a nice compliment to the Fuel, probably out hooks the Fuel on all but heavy oil.
We have done pretty well with this ball since drilling Brad's, selling about 4 more. Ball seemed to work very well for the tweeners to weaker handed players with a label drill. Very nice power.
Hope this helps ya.... (strikes4days at sbcglobal.net NOT AOL)
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Mike Austin
Mike Austin's Precision Pro Shop
Houston, TX
strikes4days@aol.com
