Rick,
Never been before so I can't say how different it played from previous years all I know is we have the same Kegel machine and use the same cleaner. The only difference is they are using Offense HV conditioner and we use Infinity.
Infinity is the latest of the Kegel conditioners and I don't see how it could play that much different.
The shot was fresh and was put down after oiling the other 30 lanes so there was definately no dry brush issue, we check the oil pump output on a regular basis and it is set at 40ml just like the pattern says it should be.
Have you looked at this years pattern, it is not that difficult and has just enough oil outside for some hold.
According to the graph they have at bowl.com.
Board Distance Units
2 15' 8-9
2 25' 8-9
2 37' 4-5
Our THS has 3-4 @ 39' 1' short of the pattern end.
In my opinion this years pattern isn't to far from a THS and I think that scores are going to be much higher than years past.
The leader in singles so far shot 789, to cure my curiosity I looked up their last years score and average they shot 562 and averaged 212-216. They also shot their first 300, 299 being their previous high sanctioned score and only honor achievement. This tells me they either shot the series of their life while under pressure or the shot is soft, leaning toward the latter since I found what I put down to be fairly easy. But on the other hand a guy bowled on it a few days earlier and he was having a little trouble getting the ball to read properly he has about 3mph more speed than me and around 150rpm more and about twice as much tilt same rotation.
The video also makes it look a bit softer than it was cause you only see my good shots. I had some where I missed, got soft or fast with and they resulted in some ugly leaves even threw a few into the big gray board.
For comparison purposes:
2005 pattern.
http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments_abc_2005pattern.pdf2006 pattern
http://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments_open_06LanePattern.pdfhttp://www.bowl.com/downloads/pdf/tournaments_open_06LaneGraph.pdf--------------------
STORM TRACKwww.Bowling-Info.com
BR.com's unofficial FAQ sectionEdited on 2/24/2006 1:59 PM