There was a more damage to the underlying rubber than I originally thought, so we needed to find a way to relieve some of the tension on our intake roller belt. V2 of the new intake removes the drive pulley (lower left) from the equation. Instead, it uses gaffers tape as the friction material around 1/2" hex VEX spacers, taking the ‘pitch’ diameter of the new ‘pulley’ down to approximately 0.75". The 18T HTD pulley in the picture was used as a ‘washer’, rather than a drive pulley.
The gaffers tape offered enough tension/friction to drive the intake roller for a couple of gear steals. It also also made a great clutching mechanism that extended the life of our intake roller polyurethane. We periodically inspected the roller rubber and at the final inspection the rubber appeared almost as good as new.