The Alden-Conger supermileage team traveled to Brainerd on May 13 to put their cars up against 100 others in the state competition at the Brainerd International Raceway.

The team brought three cars, an E-85, an experimental and a modified to see how well team members did in making the cars to be the most fuel-efficient.

They placed first in the E-85 and experimental competition and fourth in the modified.

In the E-85 competition they were getting an average of 535 mpg and in the experimental they were getting an average of 489 mpg.

“It was small schools against the big schools,” Knights adviser David Bosma said. “It was one shot at state.”

The team was made up of 18 middle- and high- school students who have been working on the cars since November.

“They did pretty well,” Bosma said. “I’ve never had a group of kids that worked so hard.”

The costs to partake in supermileage are not cheap, and the students raised the money it took by holding a pancake breakfast and asking businesses for donations.

Bosma said on average it costs $1,500 to $2,000 to build a car from scratch, and this year the students raised more than $10,000.

With the money, they built two new cars and fixed up a trailer to haul the cars.

Prior to state, the team left for Houston, Texas, on March 27 to travel to the Shell Eco-marathon.

In Houston, they competed with a biodiesel car and the E-85 car. The bidiesel car got 674 mpg for first place, and the E-85 got 1020 mpg for second place.

The diesel car wasn’t used in Brainerd because there wasn’t a class for it.

To see the team’s adventures and to see more photos, visit its blog at www.aldensupermileage.blogspot.com.