I tried this ball at two different houses: Star Lanes in Sandusky, Ohio and Harbor Freeway Lanes in Port Clinton, Ohio. Again, I credit Jeff Lizzi for punching this ball for me.
I set the pin over middle finger 5 3/4" from my axis point, center of gravity about 3/4" right of grip center on the midline, and the mass bias between thumb and strong. No X-hole was needed on this layout, and I decided not to use finger grips in an effort to get a clean release.
At Star Lanes, I rolled on a lane that had a lot of previous ball traffic. This ball got through the heads with ease, but it picked up strong in the midlane, and snapped hard with continuous movement on the backend. I needed to make a few adjustments to the left, and I picked up my speed. Eventually, I found a comfortable line, and I was able to hit the rack without leaving any corners.
Later the same day, I travelled to my home bowling alley in Port Clinton to test this ball. The alleys had a little more oil in the heads, but the backs were slightly on the crisp side. I had to stand left on board 36 and aim for the middle arrow to reach the breakpoint (which was around the eighth board). Anything inside the breakpoint caused the ball to check up early and hit the rack square on the nose.
The Screamin' Banshee seems a little stronger than what it appears to be. The new Reactor Solid Reactive bites the lane well in the dry, and I'm glad that I selected a relatively weak drilling on this ball. Of course, I can give this Banshee a little surface change with a Scotch Brite pad to smooth out the overall trajectory. For now, I'm sticking with the box surface. I would like to see it perform under normal league conditions before I make any such changes.
Nevertheless, this new ball by Storm should be another top performer in 2005 and beyond...
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Behind the approaching front, the perfect Storm is about to be unleashed...