Yes and no. Yes because what we did was frigging cool as hell. You can look around at the spectators now, just to watch some idiots going out there and doing burnouts and street racing. In that aspect, how could it not be a hit? Then it\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m just a diesel mechanic nobody from Oklahoma City. This can\u2019t be happening to me.\u201d We\u2019d never had a camera in our face, and most of us, myself included, sucked at the beginning of it. You just tense up and don\u2019t know what to say. Everywhere you look, there\u2019s a camera guy and a sound guy, and everybody\u2019s watching you and they\u2019re wanting you to just be normal. From the aspect of a camera crew filming some stupid, redneck, backward-ass guys doing stupid shit on the streets at 2:00 in the morning, did I think that was going to make a hit? No. But at the same time, I believed in it, and that led to 12 years of awesomeness.<\/p>\n You all have done this for quite a while now. Looking back on the show, what\u2019s either a favorite memory or accomplishment that each of you had over the course of\u00a0<\/em>Street Outlaws?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret that me and \u201cBig Chief\u201d [Justin Shearer] never really got along. \u201cMurder Nova\u201d [Shawn Ellington], being best friends with Chief back in the day, it was kind of always me against them. Probably the first moment that really sticks out \u2013 besides taking the Crown away from Murder Nova \u2013 was when I raced Petey Smallblock in an out-of-town race, and everybody got behind me and put their own money up. Chief told those guys from New York, \u201cYou put your pot together, we\u2019ll match it.\u201d I believe the pot ended up being 21 grand, so winning that race and winning 21 grand for Team 405, having all my boys stand behind me, put their own money on me, it\u2019s just a great feeling. You beat the out-of-towner. Everybody believes in you, and it was the biggest money race of the night. Besides winning the Crown, that\u2019s probably my second-highest achievement, right there.\u00a0<\/p>\n As things progressed, it wasn\u2019t just the 405 show anymore. With nearly 20 spin-off shows, you were basically filming year-round. With a cast made up primarily of regular, blue-collar workers, how did you balance your regular jobs and filming full-time?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We were a hodgepodge of everything you could think of. There was one year that I personally filmed four different TV shows. I know it was our original show and\u00a0No Prep Kings<\/em>. I did\u00a0Mega Cash Days<\/em>, and something else. I can\u2019t remember what the other one was, but I filmed four shows. I never made\u00a0America\u2019s List<\/em>, so I could have been doing five, maybe even six shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n It cost me my career. I couldn\u2019t be there to run my shop. I had to rely on other people to run my shop, and nobody can run your shop like you do. I had to make the decision: close the shop and continue filming, or quit filming and go back to the business. I don\u2019t want to be a diesel mechanic. I\u2019m tired of working on diesels. My hands hurt, arthritis, shoulder, back. I chose the path to do something I love. Even though we\u2019ve been struggling, I still want to go down that road. I love the fans. The racing can be as bad as it can be, and the fans all turn it around.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the most popular spin-off shows was\u00a0<\/em>No Prep Kings. How did you all balance the idea of being street racers that are now competing at the track, but also giving fans of the show the opportunity to come out and experience what you\u2019re doing?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n We personally didn\u2019t care. We\u2019re getting paid to race. That was the road to us going to full-time jobs with this stuff. Our fan base was literally seven-year-olds to 75-year-olds. What part of that fan base is actually going to get to see us race on the street? A very small percentage. The only way we could give back to our fans was to go to the track. No prep was invented to get street racers off the street. It evolved into its own animal, took off, and it\u2019s its own thing now, as far away from street racing as it could be. Everybody wants to outrun everybody. That evolution led to where it\u2019s at now: the best of the best cars, parts, and tuners. Nobody does it alone, like we used to. Am I happy with it? No. I wish it was still back to the original, real no prep days. That\u2019s where I feel like blue-collar guys like me, that can\u2019t afford the best of the best, will shine.<\/p>\n With the evolution you talked about \u2013 the never-ending desire to continue going faster combined with big-money teams jumping in \u2013 do you believe it eventually went too far from what made it popular to begin with?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll say something about that. We had some new guys come in and immediately make an impact. Clay Cole, Nate Sayler, the Gucci car, those guys basically built Ryan Martin\u2019s car in a different body. They literally called Pro Line and said, \u201cI want to run with Ryan, I want to compete with Ryan Martin,\u201d and they told them how to build the car. It\u2019s the same tuner Ryan has, so now instead of one Ryan Martin, you have five. That\u2019s where it went, and I\u2019ve just never been a follow-the-leader-type guy. I didn\u2019t want to be like the next guy, nor could I afford to build a $300,000 car. So we just do it the Doc Love way and try to make the best of it. If it ever goes back to the way it used to be, I\u2019m so much smarter now than I used to be, so much more ahead, that I feel I could go back to dominating like I used to.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, with Speed Promotions Racing taking over what was formerly No Prep Kings, and no television show currently in place, what are your plans moving forward? Will you continue with SPR, or focus more on match races and paid appearances?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n If we were still on TV, I could tell you a better direction where we\u2019re going to go, but honestly, we\u2019re in the dark out here. I can\u2019t afford to chase these multi-million-dollar teams around. I\u2019m asking a 30-year-old repurposed bracket car to do what it was never built to do in the first place. Yes, I get paid a little bit of money to go, but in the long run, it\u2019s not worth it. I hate to say that the fans aren\u2019t worth it; I just can\u2019t financially compete anymore, so I\u2019ll do what I can.<\/p>\n If I can\u2019t do a Speed Promotions race, then I\u2019ll do an appearance like we\u2019re at right now. In the last five years, we didn\u2019t have time to do appearances. We didn\u2019t have time to go out and just meet the fans and race our cars for fun, so I want to get back to that. I\u2019ll still get in front of the fans, entertain, and do the best I can. I\u2019ll do that until they don\u2019t want to see me anymore.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post DI Interview: James \u2018Doc\u2019 Love on \u2018Street Outlaws\u2019 Fame, Escalating Costs & Finding His Path Forward<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In early May, former DI contributor Craig Cook sat down four of the original Street Outlaws cast members for a roundtable interview at Mo-Kan Dragway\u2019s inaugural 405 Shootout. Cook spoke with James \u201cDoc\u201d Love, Joe \u201cDominator\u201d Woods, Sean \u201cFarmtruck\u201d Whitley, Jeff \u201cAZN\u201d Bonnett to discuss the early days of the show, how it evolved over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Love__L4A3627_watermarked.jpg\")
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