[Neal Probert]

If you have to stop to shift gears, it's not worth it. You only have a couple minutes in the contest and wasting time just shifting gears is not a good idea.

We tried it, with the shifter on the drill motors, last year on #830. With the servos linked to the clutch on the drill motors, it never really worked right.

We had to lock the clutch to prevent slipping and we eventually locked the drill into low speed. We could push around a bit and still get across the field reasonably fast.

This year, on #1015, we have tentative plans to go with a dual motor gearbox.