Jeff Knoll joins Big Rich to share the winding path that took him from a childhood spent riding motorcycles and dune buggies in Southern California to becoming a major figure in off-road racing and land-use advocacy.
Jeff reflects on growing up in Menifee and Glamis, his early experiences at the Boardmanville Trading Post, working through school, starting a family young, and overcoming periods of homelessness. He explains how plumbing, Jeep clubs, rock crawling, and desert racing eventually led to the creation of the California Rock Crawling Association and the early days of King of the Hammers.
The conversation explores the vision behind King of the Hammers, its first competitors, the importance of media and storytelling, and Jeff’s decision to leave the event as it grew. Jeff also discusses the personal cost of the Save the Hammers campaign, which helped establish Johnson Valley’s first congressionally designated OHV area.
Additional topics include Rally Venture, public-land permitting, the challenges facing motorized recreation advocacy, and Jeff’s work with One Voice. He shares why the Potato Salad Hill Cleanup Challenge remains one of his proudest accomplishments and explains how small acts of stewardship can change perceptions.
Looking ahead, Jeff hopes to retire from Lincoln Electric, build a Jeep and camper setup, and return to exploring trails across the country.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:13.670] – Big Rich Klein
My guest this week has been in off-road in one form or another for most of his life. BMX, motocross, sand vehicles, Jeeps and buggies. He started a rock racing series before it became popular, then created— co-created King of the Hammers, worked hard to save the Hammers, and has been with Lincoln Welding for years as director of marketing. My guest is Jeff Knoll. Good morning, Jeff Knoll. So good to have you on the podcast. Everybody’s, uh, quite a few of your fans have asked me to get this done. And so here you are.
[00:01:54.150] – Jeff Knoll
I appreciate that, Rich. Thanks for reaching out. It’s, it’s an interesting thing to go from being really embedded in the off-road world to kind of taking a step back. So we should have a good time talking about a little bit of history. And we share a lot of that history. So I think it’ll be fun.
[00:02:12.080] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, actually, we do. And we’ll get into that. But before we get into that, let’s jump into the beginning, ask the question I ask everybody. Where were you born and raised?
[00:02:24.340] – Jeff Knoll
So 2, 2 different answers to that, but just slightly separating. I was born in Orange County, California, and I grew up in Southern California. But shortly after my brother was born, we moved to the Inland Empire to a little town called Menifee, California.
[00:02:40.110] – Big Rich Klein
Oh yeah.
[00:02:40.580] – Jeff Knoll
And Menifee is an interesting footnote in the history of off-road motorsports because During the ’90s, there was a lot of the motorcycle industry, the supercross and freestyle motocross industry. A lot of the folks came from that area. So Menifee, Marietta, Temecula, that’s where I grew up.
[00:03:01.830] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. There’s actually a lot of the off-road racers and others in the industry, business owners and stuff that are especially That, you know, they all started there, you know.
[00:03:17.220] – Jeff Knoll
Yeah, I mean, it’s an area that lent itself well in the ’70s and ’80s and probably even into the ’90s to kind of foster that. Because when I was a kid, we were pretty feral. Certainly grew up in the latchkey generation, right? But you could, you know, ride your motorcycle Right out of your house, and, and, uh, and, and you didn’t seem to have any really issues with riding around. I wouldn’t say there was public lands available in that area, not a lot of them at least, but it was pretty rural and open. And so that was pretty common for us as kids to just, uh, jump on our motorcycles, and there was a big group of us that used to ride around on the weekends and after school. Uh, so we, you know, I think a lot of that came from that area because of just the availability of riding. It wasn’t too far to go. It wasn’t really too far to go to some of the, you know, more what used to probably be famous, maybe not as much now. But, you know, it wasn’t a long stretch to go to Saddleback Park to ride motorcycles or go out to Beaumont and ride.
[00:04:24.620] – Jeff Knoll
And Glamis was pretty close. READ MORE
