Sardo Tight Rack (1999 to ~2010)

[Bob Jewett]

The Sardo Tight Rack was introduced in August 1999 at the BCA Trade Expo in Las Vegas, by a company called Lou Sardo Products. The introductory price was $300. Sardo sponsored many major events and in the 2000s you could often see Lou or Carmine racking with the Tight Rack. They sponsored the WPBA tour among other events. Their website was tightrack.com which you can access on archive.org (2000-2009). In 2009 they seem to have had a closeout sale at $70.

Initially, there seems to have been a training step in which each ball was tapped by hand into place but at least for a while that step was not used.

Here is the earliest mention I could find of the Tight Rack, in August, 1999. It was on RSB, so I suppose it is subject to deletion by Google when they decide Usenet newsgroups are no longer relevant.

Many doubts about Sardo's new rack

groups.google.com

Here's the basenote:

Many doubts about Sardo's new rack​

1 view

WiL​

Aug 2, 1999, 12:00:00 AM

to
I saw the Tight Rack by Sardo in Billiard Digest and thought it looked cool.
My partner and I took turns guessing how much one would cost, because there
are some practical applications for what looks like the "robotic rack."
Assuming you're an honest player, using one of those racks could possibly
prevent you from being shit racked by your opponent, something that is far
too common in the places where I play. Out of boredom and curiousity I
called the people at Sardo and they sent information about the rack, but
before I got off of the phone I asked the operator the amount of the
suggested retail for the rack. My partner and I had guessed it would be
between $75 and $100, which might be worth it. The operator told me $295.99.
I just laughed, they're a bit too proud of their robotic rack. I really do
like the idea and the product, but for $295.99 I'll just have to get shit
racked.
WiL

 

[garczar]

Tapped hell. I watched one getting 'bedded in' at some tourney eons ago and they were POUNDING the balls. SR was a colossal pos gimmick.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Tapped hell. I watched one getting 'bedded in' at some tourney eons ago and they were POUNDING the balls. SR was a colossal pos gimmick.

There's a report from 20 years ago that they stopped with the pounding. Maybe not everyone got the message. I suppose on old cloth it might be necessary.

The most important part of the story is that the Tight Rack taught us what a tight rack was like. Most people had no idea before. The rack was a mystery to most. It was also in 1999 that Joe Tucker published his book, "Racking Secrets", which was mostly about where you wanted or did not want gaps. Nine ball seems to have only figured out now how to deal with a tight rack.

 

[kling&allen]

US5997404A - Racking system for arranging pool balls - Google Patents

A racking device, for racking a plurality of pool balls upon a pool table have a felt top surface, comprising a rack for containing the balls, a pressure base located above the rack, and a sweeper frame capable of relative vertical movement with respect to the rack. A plurality of sweeper pins...

patents.google.com

Lou’s patent.

 

[kling&allen]

There's a report from 20 years ago that they stopped with the pounding. Maybe not everyone got the message. I suppose on old cloth it might be necessary.

The most important part of the story is that the Tight Rack taught us what a tight rack was like. Most people had no idea before. The rack was a mystery to most. It was also in 1999 that Joe Tucker published his book, "Racking Secrets", which was mostly about where you wanted or did not want gaps. Nine ball seems to have only figured out now how to deal with a tight rack.

Bob, it’s interesting how long it took the magic rack to catch on; given that you and others had suggested it long and long ago. I suppose Sardo created the demand for tight racks, didn’t have a product at the right price point, and the magic rack filled the gap.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Corey figured out the rack long before Sardo came out. He learned to play at Drexeline Billiards in PA as a teen, in the mid 90's. He moved out of state (already at pro speed), right when I started playing there, so I never knew him until years later. Of course I heard all the stories. He and a couple other locals would spend hours breaking and racking over and over and taking notes what the balls did, when breaking from different spots, and with different gaps in the racks.

 

[Bob Jewett]

Corey figured out the rack long before Sardo came out. He learned to play at Drexeline Billiards in PA as a teen, in the mid 90's. He moved out of state (already at pro speed), right when I started playing there, so I never knew him until years later. Of course I heard all the stories. He and a couple other locals would spend hours breaking and racking over and over and taking notes what the balls did, when breaking from different spots, and with different gaps in the racks.

OK, but I suspect they never had racks as tight consistently as the modern techniques. Corey's amazing 8-ball breaks are unlikely in the pre-Sardo era. The tight racking allowed him to apply his knowledge more often.

 

[FranCrimi]

I was playing in WPBA tournaments at the time the Sardos showed us their prototype tight rack. At that time, the players --- particularly the men --- were taking ridiculously long periods of time racking the balls for each other with their opponents looking over their shoulders refusing the racks over and over. One game could be held up by as long as 10 minutes due to racking and re-racking. The Sardo rack was meant to alleviate that problem.

Even before Joe Tucker's book, there were basic things that serious 9 Ball players knew about the effects of spaces between certain balls. For example: the term 'slug rack' was around way before the book. A slug rack was a dead rack you could give your opponent if you knew what balls not to freeze when racking. He could hit it as hard as he could and the rack would act dead and hardly open.

But it worked both ways. Players knew which spaces were beneficial to the breaker as well.

When the Sardos demonstrated the rack for us at a WPBA tournament, it looked really promising. The prototype worked as it was supposed to work --- no pounding of the balls into the table to 'train' the table was necessary. So the WPBA entered into a sponsorship agreement to use the Sardo racks.

I don't know whether something changed once the racks went into production or just maybe they weren't tested in enough different conditions, but suddenly on tour, we were finding that the balls weren't all freezing. So someone (I don't know who) came up with the idea of 'training' the table by racking the balls the first time with the rack, squeezing them frozen, and than pounding each one to create a dent in the cloth. We all knew it, but didn't say it, that once the dents were there, we didn't need the Sardo or any rack, for that matter, to rack the balls after that. But those dents caused their own set of problems.

Ironically, on tour we went from "pounding balls is a no-no" to every table having deep divots.