Makes The Curve At High Speed…
First Impressions
The Supra is no doubt the quickest responding to friction we’ve ever tested from Motiv.
Our Testers:
Cody Shoemaker (Righty)
Style: Power player
RPM: 435 rpm
PAP: 4 5/8; 5/8 up
Average Speed: 18.5 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: 12
Axis rotation: 60
Test Equipment: 15 Pounds
Layout: 45 x 5 x 50
Intent: Medium roll with a medium transition at the breakpoint
Tamer Elbaga (Lefty)
Style: Tweener
RPM: 375 rpm
PAP: 5 & 3/8 up
Average Speed: 18.5 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: low
Axis rotation: medium/high
Test Equipment: 15 Pounds
Layout: 65 x 5 x 40
Intent: Medium/long roll with a medium transition at the breakpoint
Bryan Hoffman (Righty)
Style: Higher Tilt Stroker
RPM: 280 rpm
PAP: 4 1/4 & 1/8 down
Average Speed: 17.5 mph (at release)
Axis tilt: high
Axis rotation: medium
Test Equipment: 15 Pounds
Layout: 65 x 4.5 x 35
Intent: Medium roll with a slow transition at the breakpoint
Thanks to Jeff Smith and Pure It Bowling for drilling our equipment.
Buy the Motiv Supra at PureItBowling.com
Thanks to Limerick Bowl in Limerick, PA.
“Keep in mind that coverstock accounts for 70% of ball reaction, but the core creates the dynamic shape of the reaction. Your driller will alter the shape to suit your game.”
Test Pattern:
THS: 40ft, 23ml
Sport: 2019 Scorpion 42ft, 30.55 ml, 2.12:1 ratio
43ft pattern wood lane
Value
A+
The Supra is worth every penny. Performance is well above the cost of entry.
Specs
The Motiv Supra uses the High Impulse™ symmetrical core inside the new Infusion™ Reactive coverstock.
15 pound = RG of 2.57, diff of .050
14 pound = RG of 2.54, diff of .058
Coverstock finish: 5000 grit LSP
Overall
THS: A
Sport: B
Just to warn you, you’ll probably see a stream of positives here. The Supra is flat out good. Of course I’ll give you both sides of the coin but there’s a lot to like here. Motiv took the Impulse core from the Primal Rage, elongated it to make it lope a bit more and add it to the more responsive Infusion cover makes this truly the first skid/flip ball we’ve tested from Motiv. The ball gets down lane nicely and responds in a small window off the friction but keeps going. It doesn’t just bleed all its energy at the breakpoint. You can see that it doesn’t feel weak. I did need to move in to give it some room for the down lane angle. And it felt very capable although still clearly meant for a little lighter volumes or breakdown. I can easily get into a window of the 3rd and 4th arrow through the fronts and watch the Supra drive back. Even when I don’t catch it and it comes back more softly, it still seemed to carry well. Because it’s characteristics of long and strong, you will know exactly when this is ball to take out of the bag. But it might surprise you occasionally and more on that when we get to the sport shot test. What I can say is it was extremely rare to go, “wait that didn’t make it back.” However, the skid flip characteristic still does have its natural limits in relation to when it’s usable.
Cody is up next. He’s on a 43′ tighter pattern at Pure It Bowling’s wood lanes in Ephrata PA. Cody literally did nothing but strike. We could easily show a perfect game worth of strikes and then some with the pin up version of the ball. He had plenty of room. With the wood surface, he’s getting some midlane traction even though the ball is clean and then the ball just slices through the pins. The ball just seemed to match up extremely well. He plays several different lines to show some versatility. When you trust the ball you can do a lot. He can even vary the breakpoint from 2 to 8. He also shows his pin down and generally you can see the same motion but now the hit isn’t quite the same due to the way it’s transition. And this also shows you the subtlety of ball reaction changes with layout variations. If you want the same shape but want a touch slower downlane motion, the pin down layout on the Supra does that. But it seems less versatile than the pin up.
Bryan was up next at the Limerick house shot. He started out with it being a bit too clean and going through the spot so he decided to slow it down to get some traction. Once he did that, he had a good look. Overall he seemed to have a fair amount of room. The ball did drive well through the pins. You can see he actually had some miss room in. The more he pushed it out to the friction, the more the ball shaped but he didn’t want to get way out there or it wouldn’t recover. The bottom line is that it was more clear for Bryan that the Supra would be better on drier conditions but it was nice to see he could get it to work on this soupier feeling house shot.
I also tested on the 43′ pattern on wood as well. Here you can really see how strong the Supra is off the spot. I had a really good look. Yes I can accidentally blow it through the spot. If I miss in, it had no chance to hold. But the spot was large enough to have some room.
Bryan also tried this ball on Scorpion after it had about 3-4 games on it but this really wasn’t a match up. Won’t spend a lot of time here as this heavier volume pattern clearly wasn’t broken down enough for Bryan to use it but I was able to use it on pretty fresh without too much trouble.
Final Thoughts
Every manufacturer has great and average balls in their lineup. I think this ball is so good that it might obsolete some other balls in the Motiv lineup. But like I mentioned, this is the first truly skid/flip type piece we’ve tested from Motiv that really looked quick off the spot. With that in mind, Motiv is finally closing a hole that’s been open for sometime with Motiv faithful. This one will not disappoint. Above that, there is still some smoothness in Motiv chemistry that somehow despite being very flippy makes it usable on sport shots. This is as close to a no-brainer as possible.