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Technique “Today’s competitive oil patterns


apply anywhere from 70-120 units of oil in the heads. Our before-and-after tapes show that after 12 to 15 games, there’s still 50 percent of that oil left. So, if we start out with 80 units, we might get down to 40 units in a very small area,” Thompson explains. “We have a three-unit rule,” he adds,


referencing the USBC specification that requires lanes to be dressed with a minimum of three units of oil from gutter to gutter, “and sometimes, if we put five units outside, the ball doesn’t hook. And they’re going tell me that with 40 units of oil in the heads, their ball’s hooking because of depletion? Probably not. Most of the time, if it’s hooking early in the heads, it’s probably a topography issue.” The right-handed, high-rev player who makes a big move left on a pattern long enough to put a 5th or 6th-arrow shot in play may think he has found more oil in that part of the lane. What he may actually be doing is helping his ball conserve energy by launching it against that “ramp” on the left side of the lane, making it impossible for the ball to check up early because gravity is pushing it “downhill” away from the pocket. What this bowler might then


perceive to be the point at which “friction” takes hold, where the ball reaches its breakpoint and snaps back


TIPS AND TRICKS TO MAKE YOU A BETTER BOWLER


THE DEPRESSED LANE IS ONE OF MANY POTENTIAL TOPOGRAPHICAL IRREGULARITIES THAT ARE AT LEAST AS FREQUENT IN THE ERA OF SYNTHETIC LANES AS THEY WERE IN VARIPAPA’S DAY.


toward the pocket, may instead be the point at which the ball found the opposing slope on the other side of the lane, helping push the ball back toward the pocket and enabling some killer entry angles and pin-carry. Lou Trunk, who participated with Kegel in a study of topography and has presided over lane installations at all non-Stadium USBC Open Championships since 1987, identifies this dream scenario for the high- rev player as the straighter player’s nightmare. Whereas the high-rev player “had gravity influencing his


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THE OVERLAY EFFECT: This is one of the most significantly depressed lanes Ted Thompson ever has mapped. Such depression is a common outcome with synthetic overlays in low-humidity environments. As winter turns to sum- mer, the hotter, humid climate causes the lane to swell up. This lessens the depression and, depending on how long the overlays have been in place, even can create a crown.


shots first in one direction, then in the other,” the down-and-in player’s ball “is continuously influenced in the same direction throughout its travel from foul line to headpin,” thereby losing energy sooner than will the high-rev player’s ball. The depressed lane is one of many


potential topographical irregularities that are at least as frequent in the era of synthetic lanes as they were in Varipapa’s day. Consider one of the potential


scenarios the era of synthetic lanes presents: a synthetic overlay placed over a wood lane. That wood surface then is left to its own devices; obviously, it no longer will be resurfaced by resurfacing craftsmen. Any contortions in its shape resulting from that neglect also contort the shape of the synthetic surface topping it.


If those synthetics are laid over


wood lanes in a climate just as vulnerable to extreme cold in winter as it is to heat and humidity in summer — perhaps a center in the upper Midwest — those contrasting conditions


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