No, I truly didn\u2019t think it was going to be that big of a deal. We were just doing some silly, stupid teenage stuff in our adulthood. We filmed the first three seasons in the first year, and right after season one aired, Thunder Valley put on Outlaw Armageddon. I didn\u2019t even take my car. At that point in time, I didn\u2019t realize we had become anything. I got down there, and they were 15 feet off the fence. My brother couldn\u2019t see the track. The stands were completely packed, and he and his wife were standing on top of the bathroom, just so that they could see the races. That\u2019s when I realized, \u201cHoly cow, we\u2019ve lit a fire in something that I honestly didn\u2019t think was possible.\u201d I was just happy as shit that I\u2019m on the list of the baddest dudes on the street at the time. I had no clue that it was going to become what it became.<\/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 I never actually had the Crown in my possession. Three weeks before we started filming, I was racing Murder Nova for number one. I had to race on a budget even back then. The whole reason I started racing with these guys on the street was because I couldn\u2019t afford to race at that caliber at the track. The first Cash Days I showed up to, I had a small-tire Z28 that was driven in Daily Driver. I start walking through the pits and I\u2019m like, \u201cThese are all back-half cars, full-blown big tire, three-kit nitrous deals.\u201d I didn\u2019t even pay my money to get into Cash Days. That\u2019s just a waste. Two weeks later, I had my Dart, and I was ordering a transmission. I put a 509 in it and a 500-shot of spray, and that\u2019s where I started.<\/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 I was very fortunate. At that time, I was a welding and structural superintendent for a drilling rig company. I had 42 rigs in the field total. Half the town worked for the man that owned the company. When he sold the company, I had to interview to keep my job. We built 22 drilling rigs in 24 months. We had 147 welders working for us, and it was chaos. The whole time we\u2019re building these rigs, I\u2019m racing in the street. There were times when I would come to work with my car on the trailer out in the parking lot, because I just came back from racing in the street. My phone rang 24\/7; I literally slept with it under my pillow so it would vibrate and wake me up. I\u2019ve been building and working on cars since I was a kid. I would race in the street and chase the oilfield stuff. I couldn\u2019t keep up. We had some disagreements at work, and I was like, \u201cIt\u2019s time.\u201d It was not a hard decision. I stepped away from that and focused on the show.<\/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 I thought I understood what NPK was going to be, but in the beginning, we were on sketchy, small-town, little bitty tracks. Birdman\u2019s Firebird would run mid-3.90s. My car ran high 4.20s, and I could outrun 3.80 or 3.90 cars because the surface wouldn\u2019t take it, so it was legit. You can have a 5,000-horsepower program, and it doesn\u2019t do you any good. You have to get down the surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n We were in Kentucky and the fire marshal showed up and locked the gate, and there was still a six-mile line in both directions. You can\u2019t go anywhere without being recognized. I\u2019m not complaining about that. I\u2019ll talk to every single person that wants to have a conversation. Without the fans, we don\u2019t get to do what we do on the platform we\u2019re doing it on. My hope in this whole thing is that those little kids that are running in Jr. Dragsters never stop drag racing. I want to hook those kids.\u00a0<\/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 That was my fear because the track was always the equalizer. Even Murder Nova bashed what we were doing in the beginning. Then he shows up and he\u2019s like, \u201cHoly shit, this ain\u2019t no joke.\u201d The programs we are racing against today, a lot of those guys spend $2-4 million a year. I\u2019m happy for them, don\u2019t get me wrong. I would love to be in their shoes. A lot of them rotate their engines and their transmissions every year. To be fair, I still don\u2019t have two engines. When I put the Noonan Hemi in my car, for three years it never came out. I don\u2019t push it to the absolute limit. I would love to, but I\u2019m not in that financial boat. If I break the engine, I\u2019m done for a month. The reality is \u2013 and this is a very hard pill to swallow \u2013 if you\u2019re not on that level, you\u2019re getting your teeth kicked in.\u00a0<\/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 I don\u2019t want to quit. I don\u2019t. It hurts, and a lot of people don\u2019t understand, but the reality is I don\u2019t want to see\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0die. I\u2019ve given 12 years of my life to this. At the same time, I\u2019ve been blessed. My car ran 4.80s, now it runs 3.80s. I\u2019ve learned how to make a car go a full second faster. I love the Speed Promotions thing. I\u2019m going to do the ones that I can afford to go to, because I still want to be a part of it. It\u2019s hit the point where the only rule right now is steel roof and quarters. Well shit, Kye [Kelley]\u2019s car weighs 2,560 pounds. Mine weighs 2,700 pounds. He\u2019s 140 pounds lighter than mine. I can\u2019t hang with that.\u00a0<\/p>\n But I\u2019m going to do everything I can. I love the fact that I have the time right now to go do appearances. We haven\u2019t got to do appearances like this since NPK started. The one-on-one with these people, listening to how they\u2019ve got this car or they\u2019re building that car, that\u2019s my drive to continue doing this.\u00a0<\/p>\n The post DI Interview: Joe \u2018Dominator\u2019 Woods on Blue-Collar Racing, The Rise of \u2018Street Outlaws\u2019 & The Road Ahead<\/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-102634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102634","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=102634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dragillustrated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Dominator__L4A2265_watermarked.jpg\")
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