Hmm, interesting. Your ball return is pretty fast and the balls hit hard at the end. Are they riding on wood the whole way? On mine they come up off the wood channel and ride up on those two rods and slow way down before they hit (saves small fingers, too!) When I got the game somebody had placed big spacers under the screws that hold the rods so it spaced them out and the balls did what yours appear to be doing. I took the spacers out.