It is built on the same good rolling asymmetrical Cage^TM core as the SINISTER and is wrapped with a 74H^TM solid covertock.  Roto Grip’s rating system situates it with two points more overall hook potential than the HYPER CELL and the same hook potential as the SINISTER.  However, the solid cover here has a grit rating six points less than the HYPER CELL’s cover and two points less than the SINISTER’s hybrid cover.

Like the SINISTER and the HYPER CELL, the MENACE is strong and can handle heavy volume with no problem.  In fact, heavy volume is the MENACE’s best environment.   For me, the noticeable difference from the HYPER CELL comes from the shot shape that the Cage^TM core produces.  I liked the shot shape I got from the SINISTER (more length and more angular than the HYPER CELL), but I wasn’t bowling a lot of tournaments at the time and at home in the STL it never went through the pins very well.   With little experience with it, I went to it in desperation at the 11^th Frame.com Open in 2014 the last game of qualifying and it got me a 268 game to make the cut on the number.  I should have given the SINISTER more of a chance before giving it away.   After what I’ve seen so far from the MENACE, I won’t make the same mistake with this one.  It still won’t likely be my favorite option at home in the STL.  There’s too much friction at home for the MENACE to be the right tool.

Because I gave away my SINISTER and haven’t yet gotten another, I haven’t thrown it side by side with the MENACE.  But relying on memory, I believe the MENACE is even a little cleaner and longer than the SINISTER.   For a layout, I went with a strong drilling that works well for me on heavy volume.   The pin is under my ring finger.  The numbers are 55 x 4.5 x 75 (the VAL angle may be a little bigger…I didn’t write the specs down and don’t exactly remember).  There is a weight hole roughly at P3.

The first outing with the MENACE was during the PBA50 Treasure Island Resort & Casino Open in Welch, MN.  I had it at box finish -- a pretty dull 3000 grit sanded -- which was too much surface for the part of the lane I was in.  Not having seen the PBA50 Viper pattern before, I didn’t think at the time to move even deeper into the middle of the lane because I just presumed the pattern was flatter there and that I wouldn’t find more push.  Where I was playing there wasn’t enough volume and I left a lot of flat 10 pins with it.   I polished it and then hit it lightly by hand with 1000 the second day of qualifying after I saw how other guys who had a good look had theirs.  For me, that was too much in the other direction and only gave me a lot of front to back over/under.  That does tell you, though, that the MENACE is easily amenable to surface tweaking.  I will say, too, that this coverstock is really absorbent and lane shines pretty quickly.

The next significant outing with the MENACE was the PBA50 / PBA Tour doubles tourney in Hammond, IN which was contested on the 47 ft. PBA50 Scorpion pattern.  At least for the raisins, the pattern played out and on the first day the MENACE was the perfect go-to ball after the HYPER CELL that I started with started to read too early.  The MENACE enabled me to smooth out the rough edge of what had become a wet/dry spot between the track and 15 board and produced 248 and 252 the last two games of first day qualifying to salvage a good block at +170.  When I went to it during the latter half of qualifying on the second day it didn’t produce the same result because I couldn’t clear the thumb well enough to let the ball do what it needed to do

For me, the MENACE has found its place in my heavy oil tournament bag.  I believe it could be a good tool in the toolbox also for any speed dominant or rev-challenged STL’ers on any typical local house shot.  It just may require some surface tweaking