No empirical data yet. The initial thought behind the overmolded tread was the ability to crown the tread for better turning, and to avoid throwing the belt tread (which we've seen happen). We tried a teat setup with a bathroom scale up against the wall last year, but ended up mostly burning a hole in the carpet
. Maybe this year I can find a fish scale/strain gage with a peak hold function. If I can make that happen in my spare time
I'll post the results here.
On the real world application side, we went up against a few West Coast drives with belt tread last year and held our own. We had sort of a "hybrid" 4WD with our molded urethane tread on the rear, omnis on the front, and integrated jackstands to hold firm if we were getting pushed.
Earlier today, I finally saw a copy of the [WFA] essay that was submitted by my team (there will be a separate reckoning later with all those that kept this a secret from me). The narrative overwhelmed me. - dlavery [more] 
19-12-2011, 13:24
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