No crown races aren't universal, but they type you use may be.

I know this sounds contradictory, but there are two basic types of crown races. The traditional race on which the balls actually run has to be a correct match for cup in the head tube, and the balls used. So for traditional headsets crown races are definitely not universal.

OTOH, cartridge bearings don't have a true crown race of the fork, it's part of the bearing. What's on the fork is only a centering cone to locate the inner baring race, and therefore no exact match is required, and many are in fact the same. However there may be a snag depending on your headset. Some lower cups overlap the outside of the crown race (we'll continue to call it that anyway) to make a tight weather seal. So there may be an issue of a correct match. This is easy enough to check, by simply fitting th race to the lower bearing and seeing if it looks close enough to work right..