Originally Posted by Davidka

Not true. Under load, belt is more efficient.

Think about it- in a shaft car, the power must make 2x 90* turns across ring/pinion gears that are trying to separate under load (this is also bad for ball diffs, though they run well).

Belt seems draggy on the work bench, but because the belt/pulley contact is smoother and everything rotates in the same direction, binding and friction don't meaningfully increase under load.

If belt cars were draggy, stock TC racing would still be dominated by shaft drive cars. At the recent Associated race in Wisconsin, 13.5 4wd was won by aSerpent SRX4 and several of the a-main cars were 22-4's. This race is as competitive as 13.5 off-road racing gets.