San Diego, CA - June 17: The Zac Brown Band performs for military families and guests on the USS Midway during a Military Celebration Event hosted Ford, NASCAR and Blue Star Families in advance of NASCAR's San Diego Race on April 17, 2026 in San Diego, CA. (Photo by K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images
The flight deck of the USS Midway is where history happened. America’s longest serving aircraft carrier, too big to transit the Panama Canal, saw action for nearly half a century, from Vietnam through Operation Desert Storm and now serves as a museum in San Diego.
That deck is not normally where product launches happen.
But Wednesday evening in San Diego, with military families stretching across the deck, music in the air and a NASCAR race car on display alongside over 30 restored military aircraft, Ford and NASCAR made a bet that felt larger than another sponsorship announcement or another red-white-and-blue marketing campaign.
They announced what they hope becomes an annual Veterans Day tradition.
At the center is the newly unveiled Proud to Honor Veterans Day Classic, a Nov. 11, 2026 exhibition event featuring Ford Mustang Dark Horse R race cars, a concert headlined by Zac Brown Band and a fundraising platform intended to support veteran and military family organizations nationwide.
Ford also used the event to unveil a limited-edition Proud to Honor Super Duty package for its F-250, F-350 and F-450 trucks, with a portion of proceeds supporting Blue Star Families.
On paper, it sounds like an unusually ambitious collision of motorsports, philanthropy and Americana. That is exactly the point.
“There’s a lot of companies that are going to talk this summer about America 250,” Nick Ford, director of corporate strategy at Ford Motor Company, told Forbes. “But I think we can do it really authentically.”
He described the effort as extending beyond philanthropy and into corporate identity.
So does this initiative represent philanthropy, customer engagement, employee engagement or brand building? Ford’s answer to that was simple: “I think it’s all of the above.”
Then he added something executives do not always say out loud.
“It’s just the right thing to do.”
That answer matters because audiences have become increasingly skeptical whenever patriotism intersects with marketing.
For Ford military support has never been seasonal.
The company can point to decades of veteran hiring efforts, military support programs, recent defense business initiatives and partnerships with organizations including Blue Star Families, TAPS, Team Rubicon, Travis Manion Foundation and Disabled American Veterans.
Ford’s ambition when it comes to military support may explain why actor, comedian and Marine Corps veteran Rob Riggle agreed to participate. He hosted the event Wednesday.
San Diego, CA - June 17: Actor and veteran Rob Riggle emceed a Military Celebration Event on the USS Midway hosted Ford, NASCAR and Blue Star Families in advance of NASCAR's San Diego Race on April 17, 2026 in San Diego, CA. (Photo by K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images
Riggle acknowledged that veterans causes receive no shortage of celebrity support requests. What convinced him here was less the stage and more the people behind it.
“There’s a lot of organizations out there and you have to get to know the people to find out if they’re fulfilling on their mission,” Riggle told Forbes. “I feel like these folks are.”
Riggle also offered perhaps the clearest explanation of why these organizations matter.
Military families, he said, are often assumed to be fully supported already.
In reality, “there’s a lot of mortar between the bricks.”
Organizations like Blue Star Families, he said, fill the spaces government support alone does not.
For NASCAR, the event reflected something broader happening inside the sport itself.
Over the last several years NASCAR has demonstrated a willingness to move racing beyond traditional venues, turning places not originally designed for motorsports into race destinations. Wednesday added something new to that list: announcing a national initiative from the deck of a retired aircraft carrier.
According to NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer Tim Clark, this effort is an extension of that thinking.
“A couple of years ago, as we started to prove that you could take race events and hold them outside purpose-built facilities,” Clark said, “that opened up a lot of opportunities.”
But this one carries more symbolism than just racing on a city street.
“I can’t think of another sport,” Clark said, “that could do something to this scale.”
The real test of this effort won’t be whether the trucks sell. Not even whether the race attracts attention.
The question is whether, years from now, Veterans Day includes something that did not exist before: a tradition that still matters after the stage comes down and the cameras leave.
Ford and NASCAR appear willing to find out.
“I hope that the race is an annual tradition,” Ford said. “That's certainly the hope, and that's certainly the way that we can drive the most impact for this community and for all the partners that will benefit from it.”
He then added the line that may ultimately become the real mission statement:
“We've got a decades-long great partnership and friendship with NASCAR. So why not 10 years or even 20 or 30 years from now?”
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