Dan Kroushl punched the gas pedal in his silver Toyota Prius during the final 30 minutes of the 47-hour, 1,397-mile trip completed on a single tank of gasoline.

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Dave Bassage of Walton, W.Va., heads north on Route 65 in his Toyota Prius hybrid car. Click photo for larger image.

Kroushl was attempting to suck up the last of the battery energy and gas his car had been running on for most of the weekend.

The fuel light had been on for the past eight hours and trying to break the unofficial record for most miles per gallon set by a hybrid in Japan had become more of a headache than an astonishing feat.

Kroushl and four other middle-aged men are fuel-obsessive mileage maniacs, who drove themselves into the Internet's record pages with a jaw-dropping joy ride over a 15-mile stretch of Route 65 in Sewickley while averaging a little more than 110 miles a gallon.

"We are all running on fumes just like the vehicle," said Dave Bassage, the spokesman for the group and one of the drivers. "The only way I can describe it is it's pretty incredulous. This is so far beyond what we thought was possible."

The men -- Kroushl of McCandless, Bassage of Walton, W.Va.,, Wayne Gerdes of Chicago, Rick Reece of Greenville, S.C., and Bob Barlow from Fredericksburg, Va. -- drove continuously, stopping only to switch drivers every four hours like a NASCAR crew.

Their journey was chronicled by an HBO film crew, who recorded their every moment, even a brush at a local BP station where they were run off the property because only CBS affiliates could film at the station. And Barlow, the lawyer in the group, was pulled over by police yesterday at 2 a.m. because he was driving too slow.

In order to achieve extreme fuel economy, the team primarily used a gas-saving technique called pulse and glide. It's a form of coasting that involves releasing the gas pedal, then pressing it slightly again to disengage the electric motors. And as they glide, the drivers glance at a built-in screen displaying vital statistics like average miles per gallon.

"It's like playing a video game," said Bassage.

Using this technique, the team estimates they used the gas engine on only about 33 percent of the trip.

Kroushl's Prius finally rolled to a stop at 6:55 p.m. yesterday, five minutes short of 48 hours on the road. He drove more than 15 hours of the trip and emerged from the car drenched in sweat -- he was trying to boost fuel economy by not running the air conditioning.

But why spend a weekend driving nowhere?

The men each have their reasons, but it all boils down to two things: competition and hypermile super stardom.

"It's just a challenge," Kroushl said. "Some people want to race cars, see how fast they can go. I don't have a race car, so I'm doing the best with what I have."

Kroushl, an engineer, is the mastermind behind the almost three-day marathon.

He originally bought his Prius in January 2004 to save on gasoline, but soon afterward he began seeking out roads that could let him clock well beyond the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 51 highway mpg estimate.

In April, he found a smooth stretch of Route 65 where he was able to hit 100 mpg.

After more than a year's practice, Kroushl proposed his idea in online forums and discussion groups for Prius owners.

The challenge caught the attention of Reece, Gerdes and Bassage, three of the highest-reaching hypermilers on the Web.

"We're a little wacky," Bassage said. "I'm the greenie in the group, the tree hugger, and the rest are techies."

And whatever the reason for purchasing a hybrid, whether for the environment, the wallet or the technology, more Americans are turning toward the nifty electric cars.

Last year, there were 83,153 new hybrids registered in the nation, a 91 percent increase from 2003, according to R.L. Polk & Co., a Michigan-based firm that collects and analyzes automotive data.

The hybrid society is growing, but most probably won't achieve the hypermile status these hard-core hybrid owners have.

Gerdes, a nuclear plant operator, estimates about 1 percent of the public fall into the hypermile category.

"It's a trip," Gerdes said. "It can be addictive, but it also helps our environment and our oil dependency."