In earlier series featuring Gauntlet and Trial events, this advantage, combined with a suitably high ground clearance, could also be especially beneficial in events featuring ramps.In the case of the latter, 101 was able to steer Panic Attack into the pit after being lifted and hooked by the Series 2 champion's forks.

Many of 101's victories - particularly those over Overkill and Panic Attack - resulted from its tracks having enough traction to drive itself away from its opponents when being lifted and pushed towards arena hazards. Depending on their designs, tracked robots can also maintain contact with the arena floor at all times, enabling them to continue driving and steer away from opponents if they were lifted.Plunderbird 2's Series 2 Heat Final against The Mule was particularly illustrative of this, with its tracks enabling it to maintain enough traction to negate The Mule's low ground clearance and push it around the arena. Tracks can give much more traction on the arena floor than wheels, offering better acceleration and making robots with them generally more capable of pushing opponents.Plunderbird 2's tracks gave it sufficient traction on the arena floor to push The Mule around with easeġ01 (left) was able to use its tracks to steer Panic Attack into the pit after being lifted Tracks in general, particularly treads, are not to be confused with simple drive chains, which merely provide drive power by connecting the motor output shaft to a robot's wheels or gears. Tracks can vary widely in design, usually being made out of metal or rubber, and featuring grooves, treads or screws built into them to provide traction along the arena floor. This enables them to pull the robot along when driving forwards or backwards and turning sideways, as well as giving it the ability to drive over opponents if its ground clearance is high enough. Tracks refer to sets of linkages which are connected to drive gears, wheels, rollers or sprockets, allowing them to run a certain length along the robot's chassis in a similar manner to a conveyor belt.

Tank tracks vs wheels for robots