[Ryan Dognaux]

We tried to be as COTS as possible this year and it worked great for us. We went with the AndyMark KOP chassis, ran WCP 14:60 single speed gearboxes direct driving the center wheel and used 8" pneumatic tires in a 6WD configuration. #35 chain powered the outer wheels. Our acceleration was fantastic and our top speed was controllable. The drive easily handled every static defense and could push people around as needed. We didn't throw a chain all year and didn't have any chain tensioners.

The only problem we really ran into was maintenance on the drive gearboxes. We killed an 14T aluminum gear at Midwest and spent an hour taking off our drive side and removing the gearbox. It was definitely not designed for maintenance and we are going to take that into account for next year. Usually we wouldn't use 8" wheels in a game though so the bolts used to face mount the gearbox would normally be accessible.