John Hendrickson stands by his converted VW Beetle. (Photo by Diana North for the Houston Chronicle)

If you find yourself driving around Houston, be on the lookout for a bright green Volkswagen Beetle. It’s probably the quietest Beetle in the city.

Retired NASA engineer John Hendrickson converted an old 1972 Beetle to electric power with help from Randy Risner, the Manager of Interstate Battery System of Houston. Hendrickson tells the Houston Chronicle that Risner provided 12 gel-cell batteries for the conversion in exchange for some advertising decals. Hendrickson says the car gets about 50 miles per charge.

Read more about the NASA retiree’s electric Volkswagen on the Houston Chronicle’s website.

For serious holiday shoppers, Thanksgiving has been followed by Black Friday, the kick-start for the holiday shopping season. Interstate Batteries now introduces “Green Saturday” to that weekend.

Shoppers can “go green” with their shopping on Green Saturday, Nov. 26, by bringing in old batteries to participating Interstate All Battery Centers for proper recycling. Customers who return old batteries on Green Saturday will have a donation made in their honor to Toys for Tots. In addition, participants receive a 30 percent discount on any new rechargeable products that day for all those new electronic gifts bought on Black Friday.

“Reaching out to our communities is an important part of what we do at Interstate Batteries, especially during the holiday season,” said Scott Miller, Interstate All Battery Center senior vice president. “Recycling is also an important part of what we do, and we are bringing those two missions together with Green Saturday.”

Interstate Batteries is the No. 1 automotive battery recycler in the U.S., recycling more than 850 million pounds of batteries last year alone. Interstate takes great care in handling the disposal of lead-acid batteries, which is strictly regulated by federal and state legislation, in an environmentally friendly way.

“It is important for all of us to be environmentally friendly when disposing of old batteries,” Miller said. “Green Saturday provides a convenient opportunity for our customers to focus on a single day for recycling old batteries and, at the same time, help put a smile on the face of a kid through the wonderful work our friends at Toys for Tots are doing across America.”

Interstate Batteries Green Saturday provides resources to Toys for Tots to help less fortunate children throughout the United States experience the joy of the holiday season.

Participating Locations:

Interstate Batteries CEO Carlos Sepulveda tells Smart Business that conflict can be good

This month’s issue of the Smart Business Dallas edition profiles CEO Carlos Sepulveda and how Interstate Batteries® embraces conflict to clearly discern what opportunities ought to be pursued. And by doing just that, Interstate has grown its numbers, both in revenues and total employees.

So what do you get when you add the best people, open meetings and straight talk all together? A company well on its way to embracing market reality and growing market share one conflict at a time.

Sepulveda also shares one simple belief underpinning his pursuit to deliver maximum value:  “ … it’s about sharpening the ax – not swinging the ax harder.”

Read the Smart Business article now.

A group of Interstate Batteries® team members assembled in July for a 57-mile bike ride in Boone, Iowa. For most of us, the term “RAGBRAI” does not ring a bell, but in Iowa, the weeklong bike ride is a statewide tradition. Started in 1973, the Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa draws thousands of cyclists worldwide to ride from Iowa’s western border to the eastern border of the Mississippi River.

This year, Interstate team members Carlos Sepulveda, Chris Willis, Jon Simkins, Alan Vuckovich, Brian Weber, Rhonda Weber, Chad Marchant, Vince Wilson, and Ames, Iowa All Battery Center® franchisees Matt and Nancy Breen joined the cycling masses sporting Interstate green. Sepulveda likened the herd of riders to a running river, everyone moving together as one.

RAGBRAI began with two journalists as a bicycle ride across Iowa to learn more about Iowa’s landscape. Today, thousands join annually appreciating the scenery and participating in the daily events. The host cities change yearly, but the ideals remain the same. Give people the chance to experience the best Iowa has to offer in a unique way. For team members, the RAGBRAI was a chance to grow closer doing something they enjoy: cycling.

Unlike the fast-paced NASCAR races in which Interstate normally participates, the RAGBRAI emphasizes the “ride.” While traveling, a myriad of shops, carts, and vendors prepare goods for not only the cyclists, but the spectators as well. Most days rides end with food, music and activities. The cyclists enjoyed the lively atmosphere and the abundance of good food while traveling from Boone to Altoona, Iowa. Simkins explains the vendors often move with the race. “If you miss a vendor one day, you can normally find them the next,” but for some annual vendors the line would be up to a quarter-mile long.

Although the RAGBRAI is a weeklong event, many riders, like our Interstate team, only participate in a few days. Enrollment closes at 10,000 riders per day for safety reasons, but by unofficial estimates, nearly 20,000 cyclists participate each day of the ride. Each year officials choose a new route to cross Iowa, and each year the ride draws more people. This year’s riders are excited about the possibility of it becoming an annual event for Interstate, and like the RAGBRAI itself, the team member participation increasing as well.

Rambow, store manager and salesman for Interstate All Battery Center of Upland, Calif., will appear on ABC’s Wipeout Tuesday, Aug 2. He’s one of the three finalists on the episode, but he can’t reveal the results because of contractual obligations.

“It was my friend’s idea to audition,” Rambow said. “I didn’t really want to do it because I’ve seen what goes on in that show. But we went to their open casting call and got to meet people from all over the country who came in just to audition.”

Wipeout features several zany, over-the-top obstacle courses surrounded by water, mud and messy food items. Some of the offbeat obstacles include “Sucker Punch,” “Big Balls,” the “Sweeper,” the “Dreadmill” and the “Wipeout Zone.” Each episode begins with 24 contestants, and the winner earns $50,000.

“The show was very fun, but very dangerous,” Rambow said. “One woman broke her leg, and another got her clothing caught in one of the machines under the water. They have divers and paramedics that you don’t see on TV, but they’re right there on the outside in case something happens.”

His appearance on the show doesn’t surprise his father-in-law, Larry Burke, the Upland store’s franchisee.

“Tim has the ability to talk to anyone on just about any subject and is comfortable doing so, which has proved very effective in ABC sales,” Burke said. “We are all very excited about his upcoming episode.”

Rambow says the show’s theme is construction, but he’s not sure how his job in battery sales will fit into the theme. He was interviewed for a few minutes about his job, so there may be a few battery questions that make it on the air.

He said he underestimated how much the obstacle courses would beat him up. He was a high school quarterback and thought he had taken some big hits then, but the Wipeout competition was even harder.

“It really left some lasting impressions on him physically,” Burke said.

How will Rambow fare in the untamed jungle of a wet and wild Southern California soundstage? Tune in 7 p.m. Tuesday Central to find out. And if you’re curious what it’s like behind the scenes of a Wipeout audition, watch the video below. Rambow is the applicant in fatigues.

1. Buy an Electric Car, Rent the Battery

Fortune magazine’s online edition details a company testing a way to encourage people to buy more electric vehicles by renting the cars’ batteries separately. The goal: to make electric cars less expensive than gasoline cars while making recharging as convenient as refueling. Think of it like buying a propane grill: You own the grill, but you swap out the propane tanks as you need to.

Buy an Electric Car, Rent the Battery

2. How to Boost Your Car’s Value

Planning to sell your car? CNN published this list of eight easy ways to boost your car’s value. Highlights: Keep it shiny, clean the headlights, replace the floor mats and make easy fixes. We’d like to add: Replace the battery with a new Interstate® battery. Nothing shows that you’ve taken good care of the car like using the best parts.

Eight Easy Ways to Boost Your Car’s Value

3. Car Owners Holding On and Adding Miles

Drivers are putting more miles on their vehicles, and they expect to hold on to them longer, according to The Business Journal in Youngstown, Ohio. Almost 70 percent of those surveyed plan to put more than 50,000 more miles on their current car versus the miles they put on their old vehicles.

Car Owners Holding On, Adding Miles

4. Car Batteries Don’t Mix Well With the Heat

A nice reminder from Bryan/College Station, Texas: Texas heat – or prolonged periods of 90+ degree temperatures anywhere, for that matter – takes quite a toll on car batteries. Have you had yours tested recently?

Car Batteries Don’t Mix Well With Texas Heat

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. (June 28, 2011) – Interstate All Battery Center stores promise to have “Every Battery for Every Need” with the expertise to solve any battery-related problem.

So it’s only appropriate that this weekend’s new metallic and reflective green-and-gold scheme on the No. 18 Interstate All Battery Center Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) will be driven by Kyle Busch, a driver who has proven he can win at every type of track.

As the talented 26-year-old will be gunning for his 22^nd career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Busch brings an incredibly versatile resume that features 21 wins in NASCAR’s top series that have occurred on racetracks of all shapes and sizes.

Need a short track ace? Well, Busch is your driver with 12 wins on tracks of a mile or less. Those include Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Dover (Del.) International Speedway, New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, and Phoenix International Raceway.

If short tracks aren’t your cup of tea, Busch is pretty good on the intermediate ovals, as well, with five total wins on the 1.5-mile and 2-mile tracks. Those include Atlanta Motor Speedway, Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill., and Busch’s hometown track, Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Need a driver who can get it done during the two road-course stops on the schedule? No problem there, either, as Busch has one win apiece at both Sprint Cup road-course venues – Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International.

And, last but not least, you need a driver to navigate the two restrictor-plate venues on the circuit? Busch has won twice on the 2.5-mile high-banked ovals at Daytona and Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. This Saturday night, Busch will look to back up his win at the historic 2.5-mile Daytona oval from July 2008, which also came in Interstate Batteries colors.

But Busch and his fellow competitors will find a new challenge ahead of them that didn’t exist during his last win at Daytona in 2008. A completely new style of restrictor-plate racing introduced itself at this year’s season-opening Daytona 500. As the new front bumper replaced what was an important but fragile front splitter on Sprint Cup Series cars this year, the front-end design change brought about a whole new phenomenon of racing at the restrictor-plate tracks.

Until this year, the typical race at Daytona and Talladega would feature lengthy lines of cars that would bunch together, mere inches apart. But the new look to restrictor-plate racing, as seen at Daytona and Talladega already this season, involves cars running in pairs, almost as if the rear of the lead car is connected to the front bumper of the car following.

So, as Busch has proven over the years that he’s every driver for every track, he’ll want to also prove he can adapt to every style of racing in order to bring the Interstate All Battery Centers green-and-gold paint scheme to victory lane on Saturday night at Daytona.

KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 Interstate All Battery Center Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing:

Do you feel like finding someone to team up with during superspeedway races is like trying to find a date for the prom?

“I never had to do that because I never went (to prom). I don’t know. I’d imagine that is probably what it’s like. It’s probably the best analogy anybody else can come up with. As far as trying to pick somebody to go with or draft with or anything, in a perfect world, you’d come off pit road with either a teammate or somebody you’ve worked with already throughout the day. I was working pretty well in the Daytona 500 with Denny (Hamlin), so he was about two rows back of me. And Trevor (Bayne) wanted to work with me, and then Carl (Edwards) wanted to work with me. I’m hoping we can find the right drafting partner and we can get a win for all the Interstate All Battery Center franchisees, along with Norm Miller (Interstate Batteries chairman) and everyone at Interstate Batteries.”

What is it like to have drivers ask you to work with them?

“I think, this week, I’ll just leave it to first come, first served. So, whoever gets on my radio first and asks me, then they’ll be the guy I’ll work with. Other than that, you hate to say no to somebody because you might have made them mad. But, you have to realize and understand that there are 43 guys out there who all want to work with somebody, so you’re not going to be the first guy all the time.”

What is it like, visually, being the second car in a two-car draft?

“You can’t see a whole lot. You can’t really see through the rear glass of a guy’s car because, the way the sun and the lights hit it, even if it’s a cloudy day, you might not be able to see all the way through it. The spoilers are so high that your limited vision is so small that you’re really not going to make out a whole lot if you even could see through it with the spoiler. You tend to try to look over the roof of a guy’s car through the corner and try to see what’s going to happen down the next straightaway. That’s when you rely on either the guy in front of you to talk to you through going around guys or passing guys, or you rely on your spotter. If you have that guy in your radio and you’re pushing that guy, he should be the one on the radio, ‘Okay, low, low, middle, middle, high, high,’ – he kind of talks you through where you’re going so you can stay on him and not take a chance of spinning a guy out.”

Who is your favorite drafting partner at Daytona and Talladega?

“I don’t know, since things were so different at Daytona and Talladega the first time around. I’ve drafted well with a lot of people in the past, but I would say (Juan Pablo) Montoya helped me win the race I won at Talladega a couple of years ago. Jimmie (Johnson) is always pretty good to draft with. My brother (Kurt Busch), as well, but many more than that. It just all depends on which other cars end up working well with your car. Aside from our teammates, we had about another 10 guys who we thought would work with us in our radio at Daytona and Talladega, so I’ll expect we will figure out what other cars work well with our car during practice and during the first part of the race, like we did during the first two restrictor-plate races this year.”

Are superspeedways more mentally draining than other racetracks?

“Here, the physical demand isn’t that big of deal. You can run around here all day long and not break a sweat, really. Once you get down into the nitty gritty of the race and try to play the chess game that goes on all day, you’ve got to really pick and choose your spots, and think all the time about going here or there and teaming up with a guy. It really wears on you a little bit, mentally – kind of makes you tired. The other thing, too, is when you’re in the two-car draft and you’re pushing each other, you’re more worried about not spinning that guy out than anything else. You just don’t want to do that. So, you’re up on edge most of the time, just making sure you don’t get to that guy left of center of his rear bumper and cause him to turn sideways. I don’t know if you call it racing, or what to call it, really. But it’s definitely a different dynamic here at Talladega and Daytona, now, than what we’ve had in the past.”

How many people can talk on the radio during a race?

“Yeah, I’ve worked with my guys and my radio guys, being able to put the radios together where you can do everything you want to be able to do. If I could, I’d have all 42 other drivers on my radio, but that radio isn’t legal to go into the racecar. You have to have a channel radio, which I think only allows you 15. I have my teammates on my primary radio and then, on my secondary radio, I have my teammates again so I can hear them, and then I have about 13 others.”

We all know that Kyle Busch is the gold standard among drivers. That’s why it’s fitting that he’ll be in the gold and green No. 18 Interstate All Battery Center Toyota Camry for the July 2 race at Daytona. The all-new shimmering green and gold Camry will run the newly paved high banks of Daytona under the lights, helping draw attention to Interstate Batteries’ retail store concept.

Interstate All Battery Center offers customers Every Battery for Every Need® with the expertise to solve any battery-related problem. The All Battery Center concept is also a great franchising opportunity, having been recognized by AllBusiness.com as No.60 on the 2011 AllBusiness AllStar Franchise list.

The metallic and reflective green and gold (aka “Bass Boat Green” and “Glistening Gold”) colors mimic those found on Interstate All Battery Center’s alkaline batteries. And for the first time ever for an Interstate Batteries driver, Kyle’s firesuit will be green from head to toe.

Are you as excited as we are about the debut of the Interstate All Battery Center car in Daytona? Tell us in the comments below. Also, tell us how many batteries you think your household uses in a year, and you’ll be entered to win a 21-piece battery organizer. We’ll pick the winner on June 10.

Interstate Batteries and its team members ask that you remember in your thoughts and prayers the people of Joplin, Mo., and surrounding areas. Powerful storms, including a deadly tornado, swept through the region Sunday night.

One of our distributors was hit hard.

“Our distributors John and Cindy Spillane lost their warehouse in last night’s tornado,” said Interstate regional manager Keith Herod. “Everything was a complete loss. John, Cindy and all their employees are accounted for and unharmed, but unfortunately there was a significant loss of life in the area. We are working with them to get things up and running again as quick as we can.”

The above photo was taken this morning at Interstate Battery System of Southwest Missouri.

You can help the many people affected by the storms by donating through World Vision and other charities.