It was definitely a great event, we had a lot of fun! There was definitely a lot of interest in the ecomodded cars, many people thought we had electric motors in the cars with the high MPG figures.
Technically, my car should have been competing with Darin's in the 'other' category, since the Tercel is no longer produced, but I didn't mention that
The fuel expansion theory sounds right - my car was actually pretty close to what I got on my MPGuino (53.17 MPG from the pump, compared to 49.9MPG from the MPGuino), and I think that's because I had filled up after already driving about 60 miles to get there in the morning. So, both times I filled up, the car was already warm. The error in mine is probably just because the fill was only about 1.5 gallons, so any small difference there results in a larger MPG difference.
I personally enjoyed the fact that the highest Prius MPG was only about 62 or so. Several Prius owners were shocked that our cars could get such great numbers without being hybrids.
Anyway, it was a great event, and I'm looking forward to next year's. The solar car that Darin mentioned is from Newburgh, NY, and has been a work in progress for a few years. I know somebody who raced it when she was a senior there in 2005, so they've had it for a while.
Unfortunately for me, on the way home, my rear passenger side wheel bearing blew out. It started squealing a few miles before Ithaca, and I hoped that I would be able to make it back home so I could fix it, but it completely blew out right outside of Ithaca. So, with the help of my brother who drove up to help, we fixed the wheel bearing on the side of the road. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody, the bearing had melted onto the axle, we had to use a torch, gear puller, and hacksaw just to get the thing off. It worked out in the end though, we got home at around midnight, after a very long day.