I know Frank and have been to his pool rooms for some years now. He is a nice guy and has taught me some things. Anyone who knows him... Knows that he has the "Gift Of Gabber"! Frank still plays good at this stage of his life, But what was his TRUE speed "Back In The Day"? Jay, Please Chime In!
I don't know about his speed but I have a great Frank Tullos story related to cue protection.
It was about 1997/98 and I was on a cross-country road trip in a Dodge minivan that I had retrofitted to hold more than 100 Instroke cases. Someone told me about a Viking Tour stop in Charlotte and I got ahold of Mike Janis and asked if I could come and display cases and he said sure. So off I went. Get there to the Smokin' Cue which is still in the same strip mall today with the same pizza place next door and it's a rainy weekend.
Well I bring in 20-30 cases and lay them on the table and Frank comes over and starts looking at them and I give him the "protection" speech about my cases are made to prevent the cues from falling out and not rattle.....Frank stops me just as I am hitting my stride and says, "I don't care about that, they look good, they are new and I will sell them well in my poolroom, give me the price." - So he buys 10.
Then a few hours later Frank comes over to me and opens his It's George case and shows me a beautiful custom Pechauer with holly inlays that has dings in it. He says, 'I didn't care about what you said earlier about cues falling out but just now I was walking out to go get some food and I forgot to latch the case. I slung it over my shoulder upside down and the lid popped off and my cues hit the asphalt.'
I was really sorry to see such a beautiful cue marred like that but inside I was secretly vindicated and I know that Frank was able to use that example to sell a lot of my cases from that point on.
I didn't know how good he was at the time but I have heard that he can certainly hang with the best of them.