A belt drive module and a corresponding method includes or employs a belt (10) that moves along a path, at least one support roller (12) or other structure that supports the belt as it moves along the path, a drive roller (11) that effects movement of the belt along the path, a tension roller (74) that applies a tension force to the belt in order to maintain engagement of the belt with the drive and/or support rollers, at least one processing station (e.g., an image processing station) disposed along the path that performs a process relative to a predetermined position of the belt, and a torque assist drive that applies a torque assist force (T d ) at a location between the drive roller and the tension roller. Torque assist may be provided by a current limited DC motor or by a constant torque friction clutch applied to a roller (66), e.g., a stripper roller of an electrophotographic imaging system. Advantageously, the torque assist force (T d ) facilitates accurate positioning of the belt (e.g., latent image registrations in a color imaging process employing multiple imaging processing stations) by reducing slippage between the drive roller and the belt that may be encountered due to belt wear, toner contamination and/or other debris.