There were some doubts as to whether the tournament would go ahead as half of the country had closed down last week due to snow storms. But the weather behaved itself and everyone managed to get up to Ilkeston.
The format was a very simple, 12 game round robin concluding with a position round. The pattern was quite long at 43 foot so I used my Maxxx zone for the first 4 games. I hardly missed the pocket. Just tapping and sparing. The surface at Ilkeston is synthetic overlay with wood backends. So there are always more differences lane to lane than a full synthetic surface, which keeps things interesting as all players have problems working out some pairs of lanes.
After 4 games the lanes started to burn up so I switched to my NEW WILD RIDE which looked great! Out of the first 5 games I won 2 and lost 3. As the lanes burned up my ball reaction improved and I started carrying. I was within catching distance of the leader Matt Chamberlain who had taken quite an early lead with a couple of 260+ games. I won the rest of my match but couldn't keep up with the scoring pace of Matt who carried on with more 260+ games. Darren Cundy made a run for the lead using his Avalanche Slide, so close to shooting 300 in 3 separate games, the closest leaving a flush 9 pin in the 12th for 299.
Matt held his nerve like a champion, continued battering the pocket and while Darren had 299 he only made 30 pins on Matt as he shot yet another 260+ game.
I finished 3rd and was pretty happy with my performance. Overall the tournament was very enjoyable, we were luck to have sponsorship for the event by B&P fabrications so I won enough money to cover the weekends expenses.
Matt was definitely deserving of the title, he was excellent all day and I will look forward to supporting him in the TV show!
Next weekend I'm playing the first event in the 2009 ptbc tour, Maldon Doubles with my future husband!
Zara
www.zaraglover.com
