When you find out the real story on the house shot

[billf]

End lanes near outside walls will always play different. USBC specification for flatness is .040" for every forty inches. So if there is a depression of .040" at inch two and a peak of .040" further down the end reading is...... .0.00". Flat by spec but truly not the case.

If the lanes are old and/or the local association doesn't really check them then they may not be anywhere close to spec. We needed new lanes for at least five years. Being the only center in the county the association was left with the choice of looking the other way or not having a place for members to bowl. All the counties next to us have their own associations. I was lied to about this for years until I was elected to the association board.

[Amyers]

End lanes near outside walls will always play different. USBC specification for flatness is .040" for every forty inches. So if there is a depression of .040" at inch two and a peak of .040" further down the end reading is...... .0.00". Flat by spec but truly not the case.

If the lanes are old and/or the local association doesn't really check them then they may not be anywhere close to spec. We needed new lanes for at least five years. Being the only center in the county the association was left with the choice of looking the other way or not having a place for members to bowl. All the counties next to us have their own associations. I was lied to about this for years until I was elected to the association board.

And there comes the rub. It's easy to sit here and type on a key board that all lanes should be checked for topography at least every couple of years with a surface scanner and if they need repaired which I think any of us that spends a significant amount of time in bowling alleys know the answer too should be repaired. The down side to this and why it can't happen is that pretty quickly we wouldn't have anywhere left to bowl at least here anyway.

[okfoz]

I have been told that lanes will have a memory... Where I bowl they will put down any oil pattern you want for $5.00 for the pair, you just have to call ahead to have it ready for when you get there, and it has to be when the lanes are available. As it turns out, there are 48 lanes, and 99% of the time lanes 1/2 or 47/48 are the only lanes that get the sport shot, unless there is a sport shot league.

Interestingly Lanes 1/2 and 47/48 are the toughest lanes in the house, they never seem to bowl quite the same as 3-46. Even though the lanes are reconditioned before every league with fresh oil, and the vacuum is supposed to remove all the old oil and put down new, there has to be to some degree of memory left over from the previous sport shot. The shot holds up for a while, but when it goes away, it does so differently than the rest of the house.

John

[okfoz]

Dbl Post

[JaxBowlingGuy]

There is a "memory" of the shot. If you go to multi day sport shot tournaments it's likely (but not always) the scores are at its highest at the beginning. To get a "true" shot the pattern has to be laid 2-3 times.

As for the end pair being the hardest, it could be that they are not burning a pair when they oil thus the pattern they are laying (even if house pattern) isn't truly the same as the other lanes. My center and most locally will oil the first two lanes, then start over and oil them all.

[RobLV1]

Historically, end pairs play significantly different than any other pairs in the house. I believe that it's a combination of factors that cause this: end pairs usually get let play, they are oiled either first or last, they often have a walkway next to them with people walking by and stirring up the air, and they often get hit with extra air conditioning as the air circulates, changes direction, and hits them again.