Indiana High School Team Scores 2,843 MPG Win in Shell Eco-Marathon Marked by Drama, Sportsmanship

Indiana high school team's fuel economy record-setting 'cheese wedge.'

By Scott Doggett, Contributor

Smart motoring, a cheese-wedge design and high winds propelled a $3,500, gasoline-fueled 3-wheeler built and driven by a team of high school kids past a pack of much-pricier supermilers crafted by collegiate engineering students to win the 2008 Shell Eco-marathon Americas fuel-efficiency competition Saturday.

The team, from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Indiana, took home the $10,000 grand prize with a fuel-efficiency run equivalent to 2,843.4 miles per gallon.

Strong, sustained winds in Southern California over the weekend, often gusting to 50 miles per hour, plagued all of the teams and rolled several of the lightweight vehicles competing at the California Speedway in Fontana, better known as the home track for the Auto Club 500 and other NASCAR races each year.

The purpose of the Eco-marathon is not speed but high mileage. Teams build ultra-lightweight, streamlined, one-seat vehicles that use tiny internal combustion engines or alternatives such as solar powered or hydrogen fuel-cell powered electric drive—and make repeated solo runs on a flat, 9.7-mile track course.

In a twist some competitors viewed as dumb luck and others grudgingly decided was brilliant design, the vertical air foil shape (think cheese wedge) of the two gasoline engine vehicles entered by Mater Dei benefited immensely from the hair-blower conditions.

6K on a Gallon

The high school team set an unofficial record of more than 6,000 miles per gallon on Saturday when the fierce winds provided so much propulsion that the drivers barely needed their cars' gas engines.

But the school asked that the phenomenal achievement not be recorded so that there'd be no controversy over a wind-assisted record.

Instead, Mater Dei took home top honors with its 2,843.4 mpg run, achieved on Friday when winds were not so much of an issue. 

Those hot, dry Santa Ana winds sweeping in from the Mojave Desert plagued most of the 32 teams from four North American high schools and 23 universities, forcing some to mend cracked windshields, others to duct tape body panels and most to rethink driving strategies while tending to the normal business of making scores of mechanical tweaks to carburetors, wheel assemblies and even fuel cells to eek out extra miles.

33 Teams

At times there were more teams in garages than were lined up and ready to take the track, as the more than 300 competitors from Mexico, the U.S. and Canada brainstormed mightily and tinkered frenetically on their vehicles, of which 24 were powered by 87-octane gasoline, four by hydrogen, two by solar power, and one each by diesel and liquefied petroleum gas.

That adds up to 33 because Mater Dei fielded two entries.

The wind became an issue Saturday because it roared across the track's straightaways at a right angle, broadsiding the vehicles.

Blowin' in the Wind

Every one of them was aerodynamically designed to handle headwinds, and if the winds had been blowing the length of the track, as they did Friday, fuel-efficiency gains from tailwinds on one of the oval's straightaways would have been offset by the fuel-efficiency losses from the headwinds on the other.

But when a powerful wind strikes the flank of a lightweight vehicle it slows it down – unless, as was the case with Mater Dei's entries, the shape is more or less that of a wedge of cheese. Then the result was that the wide end served as a sail, enabling the drivers to kill their engines switch and allow the wind to provide all the power needed.

On more than one of the seven-lap, 9.7-mile runs Saturday, Mater Dei drivers completed several turns around the track without any help from the liquid-cooled, four-stroke, 49cc Yamaha C3 scooter engines in their vehicles.

As a result, after calculating the amount of gasoline the vehicles needed to cover a single run, Shell officials determined the fuel-efficiency of each at more than 6,000 miles per gallon.

Engineering students from the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo won last year's inaugural Shell Eco-marathon Americas, at the same track, with a best run of 1,902.7 miles per gallon.

Rare Sportsmanship

The Mater Dei team could have insisted on keeping their record-shattering runs on the books -- there's nothing in the Eco-marathon rules prohibiting the practice of burning just enough fuel to hit a predetermined speed then coasting when possible. As long as the vehicle crosses the finish line in no more than 38 minutes and 50 seconds, thereby sustaining an average speed of about 15.5 miles per hour, the run will count. Most drivers use the technique called "coast and burn."
 
But in an example of sportsmanship seldom seen these days, Mater Dei told officials that its drivers found they didn't need to use the gas engines at all once they got off the starting line: the crosswind pushed their supermilers round and round.

Because the competition was about the challenge of designing, building and running fuel-efficient vehicles -- not taking advantage of freaky weather -- they asked that their unparalleled results be taken off the leader board.

The school had won anyhow with that 2,843.4 mpg Friday run, achieved before the crosswinds became an issue.


Cal Poly fell to 2nd place after winning the inaugural event last year.

A team from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo took 2nd place with 2,752.3 mpg, and a second Mater Dei team, coaxing a shrink-wrap covered cheese wedge special, came in 3rd at 2,383.8 mpg. All three vehicles utilized gas-powered internal combustion engines.

Mouse That Roared

"When we first arrived, I wasn't sure a small high school like Mater Dei could compete with all these elite colleges," said Justin Stute, the team's captain. "But our first run broke the record (set the year before by Cal Poly) and then our second car did even better."

Aside from a blown tire -- they pumped Michelin tires rated for 50 psi up to 100 psi to minimize drag -- Mater Dei encountered few problems Friday and Saturday. In a word, the high school students were elated.

The mood was considerably less festive at the Cal Poly garage as team members packed up.

Speaking of Mater Dei's success, Cal Poly team leader David Ulrich said that while the high school students deserved a lot of credit for voluntarily disqualifying their two remarkable 6,000 mpg runs, he couldn't help but note that it "was pretty much dumb luck" that Mater Dei's design also benefited from the weaker head- and tailwinds that blew on Friday.

"It stings knowing that under normal conditions we think we could have won. Normal meaning non-Fontana crappy weather," he carped.

Other Winners

While only vehicles with internal combustion engines were eligible for the grand prize, there were other entries and other impressive fuel economy achievements.

Penn State's HFV Team from University Park, Pennyslvania, achieved the equivalent of 1,668.3 mpg with its hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle, "Blood, Sweat and Gears."


Purdue's sun-powered electric cruiser struts its stuff at Shell Eco-marathon.

The Purdue Solar Racing Team from West Lafayette, Indiana, took 1st place in the sun-powered cruiser category with a vehicle named "Pulsar." It achieved the electric drive equivalent of 2,861.8 mpg.

A team from the College of the Redwoods in Eureka, California, chalked up 304.5 mpg with its 4.6-horsepower "Diesel Corsair."

And the Spartans from Schurr High School in Montebello, Calif., achieved 163.5 mpg with their liquefied petroleum gas vehicle, "Mach 1."

The strong winds required one team to switch to a heavier driver, so the vehicle wouldn't roll. That also required an on-the-spot redesign to squeeze the new driven into the vehicle. 
 
“We designed a car for a special driver but when we entered into the track at first, we had to change drivers,” explained Eugenio Martin, a student from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City.

“Once the car was modified for the other driver, we had transmission problems. It is the biggest success for us, and it’s the greatest feeling because we fixed the transmission problem in one and a half hours.” 
 
Customs Holdup

Meanwhile, the 17-member team from Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, was on hold for two days waiting for their vehicle to clear U.S. customs at LAX.

The car arrived at the track after Friday's runs were over, and with only one day left to compete, the Canadian team worked well into the night to assemble the vehicle and clear inspection. In its first attempt, the team moved into 5th place but finished 6th overall with a best run of 1,810.8 mpg. 
 
“It was a nice outcome that we got the car,” team leader Raphael Desiletes-Aube said.

Teamwork Prevails

“We used the spare time to organize the fastest way to reassemble the vehicle. Once the car got here, it really motivated my team members to push harder so we could get the car out on the track.”

That kind of teamwork, as well as eking out maximum mileage on minimum fuel, is what the event is about.

"Students participating in this competition are the brains of the future, stretching the boundaries of fuel efficiency" to help provide solutions to the global energy challenge, said Mark Singer, Shell's global projects manager.

Posted by

John O'Dell April 14, 2008, 3:02 AM

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Alternative Fuels, Diesel, Fuel Cell, Fuel Economy, Hydrogen