HOW A QUEENS MILKMAN BUILT AN EMPIRE, LOST EVERYTHING, AND BUILT IT BACK
George "Kook" Kryssing Sr. delivered milk at three in the morning and welded exhaust headers in his garage during the day. He had no diploma, no investors, no business plan -just scarred hands and a refusal to quit.
From a cramped garage on Long Island, he built Kook's Headers into a name that dominated drag strips and stock car circuits from coast to coast. Race teams lined up. Money poured in. Then came the feds, the indictments, and a heart attack in Italy that nearly killed him. He lost everything - the shop, the cars, the cash.
So he went back to the garage and started over.
Told through the eyes of his son George "Kook" Jr., Milk Money is the hearttelt story of a blue-collar hustler who built an empire on grit, lost it all, and proved that the only thing harder to kill than a Kook's header is the man who made them.
ABOUT GEORGE "KOOK" KRYSSING JR.
George "Kook" Kryssing Jr. is the owner and operator of Kooks Headers, carrying forward the performance exhaust legacy his father started in a Long Island garage over sixty years ago. A lifelong gearhead who grew up in the shop, George has spent his career building the company into a modern manufacturing operation while honoring the handmade craftsmanship his father was known for. He lives outside Charlotte, North Carolina.
George Kryssing Jr., known in the racing world as "Kook Jr.," is the CEO and owner of Kooks Headers and Exhaust, one of the most respected names in high-performance exhaust manufacturing in the country. For more than forty years, he has been designing, building, and racing headers and exhaust systems at the highest levels of motorsport. Since 2005, Kooks has been a NASCAR exhaust provider and holds active partnerships with Mazda Speed on the Miata program, Multimatic GT4 Mustangs, Ilmor Racing Engines for ARCA, and the full NASCAR Truck Series engine lineup. George does not design from a blueprint. He designs from feel, from experience, and from four decades of proven results on track.George grew up in Fort Salonga, Long Island, New York, where he learned the trade alongside his father before relocating to Mooresville, North Carolina, in 2009. He lives there today with his wife Danielle, whom he has been married to since May 17, 1997. He is the proud father of two daughters: Jessica, who passed in April 2023 and whose spirit he carries with him daily, and Georgia, who has become a force in Kooks' sales and marketing operation. George is also a competitive power lifter who set a national record in the 100-kilo class with a 612-pound deadlift at 56 years old. His personal bests are 350 on the bench, 550 on the squat, and 650 on the deadlift. He is featured in the book Maverick Leaders. Milk Money is his first book.
