The Best Driver Award, formerly known as the Best Operators Award, was an end-of-season award presented to the team or individual who showed the best driving performance during a BattleBots competition.
The Best Driver Award bolt presented during the 2016 season.
It was originally presented during the earliest, untelevised BattleBots events in 1999 before returning for Season 4.0 and continuing for the first three BattleBots IQ competitions between 2002 and 2004. After a twelve year hiatus, the Best Driver Award was presented on-screen for the first time to Will Bales of Team HyperShock.
| Best Driver Award Winner | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robot | Team/Driver | Year | Event | Image |
| KillerHurtz | John Reid | 1999 | Long Beach 1999 |  |
| Punjar | Ramiro Mallari | Las Vegas 1999 |  | |
| Tazbot | Donald Hutson | 2001 | Season 4.0 |  |
| Defenestrator | SHENbot | 2002 | BattleBots IQ 2002 |  |
| Titan | Robotic Obsessions | 2003 | BattleBots IQ 2003 | 
|
| Titan 2 | 2004 | BattleBots IQ 2004 |
| |
| HyperShock | Will Bales | 2016 | World Championship II |  |
| Whiplash * | Matt Vasquez | 2018 | World Championship III |  |
* Whiplash driver Matt Vasquez was unofficially declared the winner of this award by Twitter poll on October 23, 2018, receiving 42.5% of the total votes. Minotaur driver Daniel Freitas got a 33.9% share, whereas Paul Ventimiglia of Bite Force and Gary Gin of Free Shipping won 15.4% and 8.2% of the votes respectively.[1]
Trivia[]
- Robotic Obsessions was the only team to win this award twice, with their first and second iterations of Titan in 2003 and 2004.
References[]
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