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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.