Correlation between driving skill and practice field availability

[apalrd]

Yes.

All of the good teams I know build practice robots and practice on large fields (whether or not they are their own).

Without a practice field, you cannot practice. You will get no more than about an hour of field time during a normal FRC competition (assuming you play through the finals). An hour of drive practice (an entire competition worth) is not a ton of time during the build season, but can immensely help driver skills training. When you have a large enough area to do full field drills, you can run up to full speed very easily, and get a much better feel for how the robot will actually handle on the field. Carpet is important for this. As a final thought, it's very hard to program an autonomous if the field isn't big enough to run it fully.

Another thing you might want to compare between teams is work hours and dedication, and building a practice robot. I know of a team (who works across the street from us, we use their practice field occasionally) who works harder than any team I know. When we go to practice (in between competitions), they are always spending late nights (past midnight) practicing, letting their robot cool and building minibots, practicing some more, fixing whatever breaks, etc. while their robot is sitting in its bag in the corner, only to pull it out for a two hour unbag winow and practice some more.