The streamlined and super lightweight vehicles, most three-wheeled, were hoping to take home a $10,000 prize for the most fuel-efficient car on the track.

The target this year: 2,000 mpg. They need that to best last year's winner.

In 2007, the team from Rose-Hulman came in second with 1,637 mpg.

This year the engineering students from Terre Haute, Indiana were franticly trying to get their entry ready for the track. It was mid morning and the students were still spinning wrenches on the chassis and wielding their volt-ohm meters like samurai swords. "There's a lamp on this board, how much does it draw," said one. The exasperated answer from another harried student was, "3/4 amp".