Race day one is almost done here in Houston, and the college and high school engineers are starting to surmount the technical difficulties and put up extraordinary numbers with their cars.
When we last left Durand High School, the team’s ethanol-powered car had swiped another vehicle around turn one and wrecked. But the car got back on the road, and the team recorded two full runs, including one of 345 miles per gallon. Three of the cars in the fuel cell category scored more than the equivalent of 1,000 MPG. And the girls from Granite Falls High School got as high as 182 MPG in the pink-and-green diesel “Iron Maiden.”
Tomorrow: How you drive these crazy things, how you build a car when your college forbids welding, and the final tallies from Shell Eco-marathon Americas.
As 
But fortune turned for Granite Falls, and this afternoon the girls finished all 10 laps around the downtown Houston track, erupting in a chorus of cheers as the car pulled in to have its fuel milage measured by Shell volunteers. Werner says he told them to forget the mileage and just get the car over the line. Once you get a number on the board, he says, it’s there, whether it’s 50, 100, or 200 mpg.
Prosthetic Gods
Not so long ago, the Purdue University solar car team was competing in the 
To compete head-to-head with the other energy sources, solar cars have to compare their energy use to the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline and do the math. Trefilek says Purdue made two solid runs this morning, and while official word from Shell hasn’t come down, he says Pulsar’s on-board meter showed they’d reached the equivalent of 4,400 mpg.
Keith's note: I find it to be a little strange that the other major U.S. manufacturer of SRMs, Aerojet, is not being invited to participate in this presentation. If Rep. Bishop truly intended this event to be a discussion about national capabilities, one would assume that he'd try and get a representative set of presentations - not just one company's - the one he represents in Congress. Truth be known, this is really all about ATK and the fear of lost business in Utah - with the arm waving about national issues used as a smoke screen. As for DoD concerns, there is clearly no consensus on this issue - either way. As for the D-5, its first stage stage (a SRM) is 24 feet long whereas Aerojet's SRMs on the Atlas V are 67 feet long - so clearly someone other than ATK can make large SRMs.
Keith's note: Excuse me Rep. Bishop - but are you suggesting that "NASA's tested replacement" is the 
Besides the slew of large universities, there’s also a contingent of plucky high school teams competing here at the 
Hope isn’t lost: the students from Grand Rapids High School in Minnesota tell DISCOVER that despite the competition, the teams help each other out. Still, the high school students want badly to succeed, and especially out-do the college team. Grand Rapids took 7th overall last year. This year started slower for them, as their morning session run made only a single lap. But their still hopeful, saying the new gasoline engine this year could achieve 700 miles per gallon.
