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And here I thought 1,902.7 mpg was a lot. That was the winning rating at last year's Shell Eco-Marathon Americas coutresy of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This year, three teams had a higher mpg score in the event this weekend, and it was the students from Mater Dei High School from Evansville, Indiana who coasted away winners with a mpg rating of 2,843.4 in their #22 vehicle (on the right side in the image above). Mater Dei's second vehicle (#21, on the left) came in third overall. Teams from both universities and high schools competed and Mater Dei took home the $10,000 grand prize.

As you can see in the list of teams that competed in the event, combustion engines far outnumbered other powerplants (six fuel cell, one LPG, one diesel, and two solar cars also competed) and, indeed, Mater Dei's #22 was a combustion-engine prototype vehicle. Details on the top results from the alternative powerplants are available after the jump, but here are the numbers: diesel got 304.5 mpg, LPG made 163.5 mpg, fuel cell/hydrogen made 1,668.3 mpg and solar got 2,861.8 mpg. That higher mpg number wasn't enough to win the competition because fuel economy wasn't the only category that counted toward the final score.

Last year, Cal Poly (ok, ok, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo) won the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas with an astounding 1,902.7 mpg score. For 2008, 34 teams will compete at the California Speedway event in April. Last week, Shell-Pennzoil driver Kevin Harvick was at the speedway with some of those winning Cal Poly students to talk about defending their title. The picture above shows Harvick and the students checking out last year's winning vehicle. We don't have too long to wait to see who - if anyone - will beat last year's record. The 2008 Eco-Marathon takes place April 10-13.

UPDATE: Harvick's name was misspelled in an earlier version of this post. Thanks to jzj.

[Source: Shell]