Jeff grew up in rural Auburn, Indiana next to his grandparents’ farm. At the age of seven, his family got their first ATV 3 wheelers. These ATVs gave Jeff wings and he would race around the 90 acre farm and visit his grandma and neighbors almost every day. At the age of nine, Jeff’s dad taught him to drive their truck and after that he was driving anything that had wheels. Jeff helped his father, Jack Cook, in Jack’s Auto Body Shop from an early age and learned about cars from the inside out. When Jeff was 14 he got his first car, a 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. After getting the Pontiac home, he started restoring it.

He worked on the Grand Prix until he was 17. After finishing his car, Jeff and his dad Jack would take their cars to car shows and cruise-ins. After graduating from DeKalb High School in 1989, Jeff attended a leading auto diesel trade school. In 1991, Jeff got the opportunity to work for Kirk Dabney who had the Giant monster truck. In 1992, when Dabney purchased a second monster truck, Jeff got the opportunity to drive Thunder Struck, which was previously Nitemare III. That same year, Jeff and his high school sweetheart, Jody, were married.

In December of 1992, Jeff received a call from team Overkill owner Marty Garza inviting him to drive Overkill for the 1993 season. Jeff drove Overkill until April when Team Overkill had a devastating fire that destroyed their shop and trucks. After the fire, Jeff decided to build his own truck. Wanting something different, he combined his love of hot rods and monster trucks. The War Wagon emerged. Jeff performed with War Wagon 1 in the Midwest from July 1993 until November 1996.

In 1997, Jeff debuted War Wagon 2. He traveled and performed all over the country until August of 2003 when he temporarily retired to run his fire truck business, Wildfire Manufacturing, Inc., now known as 1st Attack Engineering, Inc.

Jeff and his crew never slow down and are always working on something. In 2010, the NEW old school truck Shotgun Harry which stands tall on 73″s and has made several appearances around the Midwest.For 2016, HotRod Harry was built out of Jeff’s love for monster trucks and hot rods.