[Tom Line]

This is not really quantitative, but....

The mentors on our team spent a lot of time watching the pushing matches trying to determine what drive train was the best.

Our final conclusion was reasonably simple: Whomever went into a pushing match with the most momentum initially won nearly all the time, regardless of their drive train.

We played with our gear ratios to improve our speed, and discussed changing our wheel distribution to change the weight on different wheels to improve turning, but in the end most teams proved that 4 wheels was just as good as any other option.

Some of the 'fastest' teams out there, like Hot, didn't even use traction control (at least they weren't using it in the Michigan regionals).