Are you talking about dragging a lane whilst it is bone dry? I can't understand why anyone would dust a dry lane............unless the building is particuliary old and or the ceiling was falling apart.
Dragging a dry will have no adverse effect on ball reaction or consistency unless the lane dragger had residual oil or the lane person had oil on his/her shoes, there would be no noticeable difference between any lanes regardless which direction they were dragged.
If however you are referring to dragging a lane with oil on it before getting a top up oil or before cleaning and re-oiling.............
Dragging of the lanes isn't really neccessary any more, some say that dusting a lane before cleaning aids in the machines ability to clean the lane, some say it makes no difference.
I personally think that dusting lanes is a waste of time...........why spend thousands of dollars to buy a machine to put down precise amounts of oil on individual boards and then have a person walk down the middle of the lane dispersing the oil every where?...............it just doesn't make sense.
It all depends on how far your dragging the lanes.........if on one lane you started dragging at the foul line and finshed at the pindeck, then one would expect that some of the oil would be dragged down the lane, in addition to the oil transferred by the lane persons shoes and depoisted where it is not wanted, and consequently a noticeable ball reaction will be evident to a lot of bowlers.
If on the other hand you started at the foul line and finshed dragging at the end of the buff, then I would suspect that difference between starting at the end of the buff and dragging towards the foul line would be negligble on ball reaction and only noticeable to the elite bowlers.
If you have to drag/dust a lane before oiling................the correct way is to start at the end of the buff and drag towards the foul line.
Any centre who still instructs it's staff to walk down a oily slippery lane to drag the lanes is heading for the courts, a staff member who slips and injures themselves whilst performing this duty could sue the bowling centre.
There would not be a court in this land that would deem the bowling centre to have complied with the relevant work place health and safety obligations...........it would be a open and shut case........the centre would lose, BIG TIME!.............
Shawn
