10-4 Magazine / August 2026 13 In 1988, Bob and his first wife were caught in a tornado in Arkansas while hauling Richard Petty’s race car to the SEMA convention. At the time they were caught in the tornado, Bob was still running his 110” sleeper. According to Bob, all 18 of his truck’s wheels were “off the ground” and he did three full revolutions before the truck was blown over into a muddy field. Bob’s wife was in the sleeper at the time and was thrown about. She escaped injury because she was padded by all the clothes that fell out of the large closet! Fortunately, Bob and his wife were not even scratched after being through a tornado, but his Peterbilt didn’t fare so well. Richard Petty’s display car also came out unscathed. Bob’s sleeper took the brunt of the damage. After the tornado incident, Bob went home, removed the damaged sleeper, and then put his drome-plate back on (yes, the same one he used to camp out on in the early 60s when he had no sleeper at all). He had another cab already painted, replaced anything broken, and within four days he was headed to the SEMA show with the Petty display. While Bob was at that SEMA show he ordered another sleeper from his friends at Double Eagle. That 120” sleeper would be the last one he installed, and it became the last iteration of his now famous Peterbilt. In the early 1990s, Bob hauled for the Medtronic Corporation that specialized in the mobile medical field. That contract lasted about four years. Bob hired other drivers to work on the Medtronic hauls. Each Medtronic rig had a 310” wheelbase, and the custom trailers they pulled were mobile operating rooms, equipped with specialty diagnostic equipment, and even a rolling morgue. The money he made from the Medtronic gig was excellent, but Bob wasn’t running his signature rig on those runs and soon decided that he needed to get back in his ‘61 Peterbilt, which was being upgraded during that time. After that, he began running a step-deck trailer, and went into select specialty hauling. In 2007, Bob installed an N14 Cummins, mated to an 18-speed, and that driveline configuration would be Bob’s final one. In 2011, when I was in the Los Angeles area filming an episode of American Trucker, I was out at George Sack’s place. While I was there, I took a photo of what I thought might have been the original “Jesus micro-bus” from the movie Convoy. In 2020, I found a photo of the bus, and then immediately called George and asked if he still had that bus? He told me that he did. I called Brad Wike immediately and asked if he wanted to partner with me on saving that Jesus bus from the film, and he was all-in. I called George back and negotiated a price, and then Brad called Bob Spooner, because there was nobody on the planet that we wanted to move our Jesus bus from California to North Carolina, other than Bob Spooner! Brad had hired Bob to haul dozens of classic trucks out of California over a 20-year period, with most of them coming from Courtland Truck Works, so he was the obvious choice for the haul. After setting dates with Spooner for the pick-up and delivery, all roads led to Spooner, Trucker, Brad, me, and the Jesus bus for a glorious and spiritual reunion. We intercepted Bob at a truck stop outside of Charlotte and spent four days with him once we got to Brad’s place. I enjoyed every moment I got to spend with Bob and his best friend, Trucker (his dog). During those several days, I sat down with Bob and conducted several interviews with him about his astonishing career on the road in his 1961 Peterbilt. I have a Bob Spooner documentary that is in the final stages of editing. It captures Bob like never before or ever again, in his own words, so stay tuned for more information about when and where that documentary will drop. After Bob delivered the Jesus bus, I stayed in contact with him after he left Brad’s place.
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