Found: Ricky Rudd’s Retired NASCAR Hauler Out Working the Tobacco Fields in Its Famous Tide Livery

A lot of race cars retire to museums after they’re done competing; others go to personal collections, never to be seen again. But what about the semi-trucks that haul them around for thousands of miles, from one event to the next? That depends. In the case of retired NASCAR driver Ricky Rudd’s Tide-liveried Ford Aeromax, it’s still putting in work, just in a different field—a tobacco field, that is.

The orange big rig is supposedly living its second life as a tobacco hauler near the town of Roxboro, North Carolina, about two hours northeast of Rudd Performance Motorsports’ former headquarters in Mooresville. It’s become a fixture among locals over the years, which isn’t surprising; you’d remember seeing a truck like this too in a sea of black, white, and grey Freightliners and Peterbilts. In fact, the locals are so passionate about Rudd’s old tractor that I decided to start tracking down info on it two whole years ago so I could write a story.

I first saw the Tide truck posted in a Facebook group in April 2023. Billy Marsh shared the photo at the top of this story with a simple caption: “Ricky Rudd’s old hauler transports tobacco in Roxboro, NC now.” I was immediately interested, and I hopped in the comments to learn more. One person said they used to see it hauling lumber many moons ago. Another local mentioned that it had been parked for more than 20 years and only recently returned to the road. Someone else backed that up, saying that they had just helped the owner get it going again.

”Awesome,” I thought. “I’m going to get in touch with this guy.”

But that never happened. My comments and DMs went unanswered as I tried to locate the owner of this truck that carried Rudd’s slick Thunderbird around the country some 30 years ago.

I revisited the hunt every so often, searching Google for the man they call “Mr. Brooks” in or around Roxboro. To be honest, I still haven’t been able to get in touch with him, and I’m hoping that someone who reads this can help. But last week, I was able to find its parking spot, and that’s a pretty solid lead if you ask me.

Another page posted the Tide truck on Facebook, and yet again, people who knew the rig hopped into the comments. They mentioned that it was “at the end of Highway 158,” which was a new detail to me. I scrolled further down and saw someone say it was parked across the street from Dollar General. Like so many other rural towns, Roxboro has at least five of those:

I clicked on the first one there, off Weeks Drive, and what do I see? The Ricky Rudd race hauler, parked in a field. Bingo, baby.

These photos are recent, too, as Google Maps says they were taken in February 2025. I’m just glad to finally lay eyes on it and verify that it lives where others said it does. It feels like a win, considering I had more or less come up empty for two years.

I’m hoping to learn more about the truck and its history so I can write a follow-up story. From what I can tell, Rudd used the truck for several years after he left Hendrick Motorsports to start his own team in 1994, taking his Tide sponsorship with him. It may have even been his hauler when he won the Brickyard 400 in 1997.

It’s great to see that the truck has been taken care of, and even if it isn’t in daily operation, it’s surely getting more use than the Blue Oval race cars it used to carry.

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