Cascade Lift Speed and Notebook Tips

We have a cascade, but it lifts up and down slowly (not really, really slowly). Would anyone recommend it being faster or slower? Because in a past comp (JL Mann opener), we noticed that the teams were playing defense and they needed fast scoring. We tried applying grease to the C channels to eliminate friction while coming down, but it still wasn’t faster. ANY HELP?

Also any notebook tips on notebook becuase we are pretty consistent with skills and stuff but we need to really upgrade our notebook (for excellence or any other awards.)