Real estate blogger names top 10 redneck cities

Oklahoma City is No. 3 on the list of redneck cities.

While some rural residents get labeled "rednecks" for their interests, looks, language and behavior, one writer says they can live anywhere and has come up with a way to determine which cities are the most redneck.

Natalie Grigson, writing for the real estate blog Movato, looked at eight key factors: Percent of population that didn’t complete high school; number of NASCAR race tracks close by; and the number per capita of Walmarts, gun and ammunition stores, taxidermists, cowboy-boot stores, country-music radio stations and repair shops for riding lawn mowers and tractors.

The formula labeled Atlanta as the most redneck U.S. city. Second was Kansas City, Mo., followed by Oklahoma City, Nashville, Tulsa, Fort Worth, Arlington, Tex. (between Fort Worth and Dallas), Sacramento, Cleveland, and Mesa, Ariz. (Read more) Cleveland? "That wouldn't have happened if Grigson had included race and voting patterns such as the McCain Belt, that swath of counties from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania that voted more strongly for John McCain in 2008 than George W. Bush in 2004," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog.

Nascar (or, if you prefer, NASCAR) tries to add younger, urban and multicultural fans to rural base

Stock-car racing, which developed from moonshine runners in the hills of Southern Appalachia and still has a base of "older, rural white men," wants "younger, urban and multicultural" fans, Stuart Elliott reports for The New York Times. Fans will start seeing that this week on social media and in a big way at Sunday's Daytona 500 (where for the first time the pole sitter is a woman, Danica Patrick; photo by Jonathan Ferrey, Getty Images).

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, which is no longer an association but keeps the name, perhaps to keep the name of the privately held company entirely in capital letters, changed advertising agencies last summer, moving from a firm in St. Louis to "a Madison Avenue giant, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, known for sophisticated work for blue-chip brands like American Express, Dove and I.B.M.," Elliott writes.

Kim Brink, managing director for brand, consumer and series marketing at Nascar, told Elliott that the agency's main office in New York is developing “a new brand direction and a new creative platform,” including Spanish-language commercials and greater emphasis on Nascar’s online offerings. "Nascar drivers are to contact fans and followers this week in social media like Facebook and Twitter to alert them the effort is coming," Elliott reports.       

NASCAR says it will use E15 in 2011

The ethanol industry scored a public-relations boost over the weekend as NASCAR announced it would begin using E15 blend gasoline beginning in 2011. The auto-racing circuit announced "it will utilize a 15 percent ethanol blend fuel provided by Sunoco in its three national series – Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Trucks – beginning next season," Jim Utter of the Charlotte Observer reports. NASCAR said the ethanol it uses will come from U.S. corn farmers.

"While fueling the same close, door-to-door racing that thrills our fans, American ethanol creates jobs in the United States, helps foster energy independence and continues the greening of our sport," said Brian France, NASCAR chairman and CEO. Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s director of competition, told Utter that testing with the fuel has shown a modest increase in horsepower. "We can’t make mistakes in this area," France said. "This has got to be a smooth transition. We’re pretty confident it will be just that." (Read more)

Environmentalist funds cause by racing stock cars

Leilani Munter maybe the epitome of an enigma. "In a sport of barbecue-loving good 'ol boys, she's a self-described 'vegetarian hippie-chick race car driver'," writes Jim Morrill of The Charlotte Observer. Her sister is even married to a member of The Greatful Dead. But Munter believes she is in a unique position to further the environmental cause with race fans, a group that is not considered the biggest fans of green energy.

"If I were another biology graduate from California, a composting, recycling, tree-hugging, very hippie chick trying to change their light bulb, they wouldn’t give me the time of day," Munter says. "The only way I have their attention is because I have a racing suit on and race car underneath me."

"For every race, she buys an acre of rain forest through the National Wildlife Federation to offset her carbon emissions," Morrill reports. There are signs that NASCAR maybe following suit. It has hired its first director for its new "Green Initiative." Other attempts to make racing more environmentally friendly include the decision by IndyCar to switch all racers to ethanol-based fuel, and some sponsors are offsetting drivers carbon emissions with investments in solar energy and wind farms. (Read more)