Clarkson U Wins Gage Products' Snowmobile Fuel Economy Award

FERNDALE -- Gage Products announced Monday that Clarkson University of Potsdam, N.Y. won the company's award for best overall fuel economy in the annual SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge.

Seventeen universities from the U.S. and Canada participated in this year's competition, held March 4-9 at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

Clarkson University was the fourth place winner overall. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Kettering University and the University of Idaho were first, second and third place overall winners.

Gage, a leading supplier of test fuels, paint solvents and paint-system recycling products, has been a Clean Snowmobile Challenge sponsor for 11 consecutive years. The Ferndale-based company also provided alternative fuels to the participating teams.

The Clarkson University team earned the Gage Products Award for achieving 20.2 mpg on the program's Endurance Run event, running on E66 (66 percent ethanol blended with gasoline). 

Other schools participating in this year's competition included Ecole De Technologie Superieure, North Dakota State University, Northern Illinois University, McGill University, Michigan Technological University, South Dakota School of Mines & Technique, State University of New York at Buffalo, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, University of Waterloo and University of Wisconsin-Platteville.

Held in Michigan since 2002, the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge is hosted by Michigan Tech's mechanical engineering department and the school's Keweenaw Research Center. The event, an engineering competition for SAE student members, attracted more than 200 student competitors from colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.

"Gage blends the fuels used for our indoor lab emissions tests and all of the other outdoor events," said Jay Meldrum, lead competition organizer for the Clean Snowmobile Challenge. "Gage's expertise and generosity have made this event a huge success. I don't know how we could do this without their support."

Gage's Test Fuel Division maintains an inventory of more than 250 custom-blended gasoline fuels for use in automotive test programs, including SAE fuels, ASTM fuels and OE-specific fuels. Gage also offers more than 25 different calibration fluids needed to meet testing requirements for a variety of automotive products, including oil and fuel pumps, fuel injectors and transmissions.

Gage has provided its customers with more than 1,000 different blends of gasoline for automotive-test uses over the last five years. These fuels not only represent regional fuel configurations from North America, Europe, South America and the Asia/Pacific region, they also include gasoline alternatives such as ethanol and gasoline with additives like MTBE.

Gage Products Company is a leading supplier of automotive paint-system solvent-recycling programs. During the past 25 years, the company's closed-loop recycling systems have been used by Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Fiat, Jaguar/Land Rover, Mercedes, Nissan, Volkswagen, KIA and Hyundai to safely remanufacture nearly 100-million gallons of spent-paint solvent and waste material.

Gage also is a global leader in custom fuel-blending services for product development and emission-control testing. The company provides custom-fuel blends and reference test fuels for automotive manufacturers as well as for engine manufacturers and their suppliers throughout the world. In addition, Gage manufactures paint-related products and cleaners for a variety of automotive and industrial paint-system cleaning, maintenance and restoration programs.

Visit www.gageproducts.com for more information about Gage Products Company.

Further details about the 2013 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge are at http://students.sae.org/competitions/snowmobile/ or http://www.mtukrc.org/snowmobile.htm.