{"id":102659,"date":"2025-12-01T17:44:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/life-beyond-street-outlaws-four-original-stars-talk-past-present-and-future\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:44:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:44:05","slug":"life-beyond-street-outlaws-four-original-stars-talk-past-present-and-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/life-beyond-street-outlaws-four-original-stars-talk-past-present-and-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Beyond \u2018Street Outlaws\u2019: Four Original Stars Talk Past, Present and Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a beautiful afternoon in early May, and Mo-Kan Dragway in Asbury, Missouri, is hosting the inaugural 405 Shootout. Although Speed Promotions Racing (formerly No Prep Kings) is hosting their season opener at Famoso Dragstrip near Bakersfield, California, on the same weekend, numerous OG\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0cast members are at Mo-Kan, including James \u201cDoc\u201d Love, Joe \u201cDominator\u201d Woods, Sean \u201cFarmtruck\u201d Whitley, Jeff \u201cAZN\u201d Bonnett, and Jerry \u201cMonza\u201d Johnston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This story originally appeared in DI #196, the State of Drag Issue, in September\/October of 2025. Since then, Speed Promotions Racing cancelled the final races of its 2025 season, effectively ending the Street Outlaws era. <\/em><\/p>\n

After 15 seasons of the original show, plus countless spinoffs, many of the drivers are at a crossroads: with no television deal currently in place and fewer contracts being offered, they must decide how to proceed moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drag Illustrated<\/em>\u00a0sat down with Love, Woods, Whitley, and Bonnett during the 405 Shootout to discuss the early days of the show, how it evolved over time, and what the future holds.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking back on when the original 405 show first started, did you ever believe it would blow up and become as popular as it did?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Sean \u201cFarmtruck\u201d Whitley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sean Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh no, we definitely thought they were cops. We thought it was a sting operation. And whenever they sent the guys out to film the sizzle reel, I thought, \u201cThey\u2019re going to film us racing each other for how long? Eight weeks?\u201d I thought they\u2019d never air a single episode. The first season was eight episodes, and I really thought we weren\u2019t going to make it out of our first season. For it to go 12 years, and we\u2019re still recognizable, that blows me away. Everyone recognizes the truck. That\u2019s just an old crappy truck that we built in my garage. We worked on it on weekends and started racing it, brought it out of town and it was a great sleeper, it worked. But yeah, I\u2019m still blown away that we can go to a track and have a line.<\/p>\n

Jeff Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0I think Farmtruck says it all. Farmtruck, he was just a friend. I had all but sold my car. I was helping my buddy get his truck down the road, talk crap, and getting races. But the moment the film crew came and legitimately started filming the show, we knew our lives were going to change. We just didn\u2019t know what direction, for good or bad. But we said yes, we committed, and I think every guy or gal on the show in the very beginning was committed. We were all ready to do the job, and that\u2019s the big coincidence in it. All eight to 10 of us were ready to say yes and commit to the entire filming.<\/p>\n

Joe Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0No, 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

James Love:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes 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

\"\"
James \u201cDoc\u201d Love<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Love:<\/strong>\u00a0It\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

Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0I 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

Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s a tough one. I guess for us, as hard as it is, it was the places this took us. It took us to Canada, it took us to Australia, it took us to South Africa. For us to be able to look at how other car cultures and countries do this gave us the gratitude to be able to look at how good we have it here in America. Yeah, we filmed a lot. We had a lot of races, we won a lot, we lost a lot, but it was the perspective we were given that we have it pretty good here. Yeah, nothing\u2019s perfect. Other countries do a few things cool and a little bit different, but at the end of the day, this is the greatest car culture on planet Earth. Everyone should go experience something different to gain the gratitude that we should all have here. That\u2019s what keeps us motivated, that\u2019s what keeps us going \u2013 because we know how good we actually have it.<\/p>\n

Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0Talking about memories and favorite moments\u2026my favorite moment is when we built the Dung Beetle, and AZN got behind the wheel. He had to row gears, and he showed them all how it was done. It was the only stick-shift car out there and he did pretty damn good, outrun a bunch of supercars with it. Even though we\u2019re not related, he\u2019s 20 years younger than me and it was like watching my boy. We built the car, we raced the car, and that\u2019s one of my fondest memories.<\/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

Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, first of all, you mentioned spin-off shows. I think we, or\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>, set a record for the most spin-off shows in any reality TV show series. We\u2019re proud of that.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Joe \u201cDominator\u201d Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0I 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

Love:<\/strong>\u00a0We 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

Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0I think what you saw was an expedited evolution of car guys. We start out racing go-karts, and then we get a little street rod, then big tire, big blocks, and now we\u2019ve got fiberglass bodies. In a 12-year period, you had an influx of sponsors and investors, you had people that wanted to be involved at any cost. And I tell people, these cars were the fastest on the planet because every single manufacturer was waiting to give these parts away. Tires couldn\u2019t get any better, there were no bigger superchargers, nitrous was what it was, and they were just throwing parts at it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And now, these other events, they\u2019re trying to emulate the culture that this show created to go backwards. You\u2019re seeing all these Top Fuel guys, these characterized athletic type of divisions go backwards a little bit to recapture what\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0may have created, but at the end of the day, that 12 years was a fast-track on the launch pad to the evolution of a normal car guy.<\/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

\"\"
Jeff \u201cAZN\u201d Bonnett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019ll be short with my answer. I think Farmtruck and I, at that point, that was maybe the seven- to eight-year mark, we saw the show evolving too fast and we saw the ship growing and we saw it getting out of control. Farmtruck and I took it upon ourselves to say, \u201cOK, I don\u2019t know if the other guys are into this, but we\u2019re going to at least try to throttle it down. We\u2019re going to try to throttle-stop this. We need to start going backwards, guys. We need to start capturing the audience that was paying attention, because they\u2019re not catching up with us. They don\u2019t understand how fast this is going and they can\u2019t relate.\u201d So we tried to bring relatability back, first with\u00a0Daily Driver<\/em>\u00a0and then\u00a0Locals Only<\/em>. It didn\u2019t work a hundred percent, but Farmtruck and I at least gave a valiant effort to reel back the evolution a little bit.<\/p>\n

Love:<\/strong>\u00a0We 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

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0I 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

Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, a little bit of the history of the show and how it evolved. Every human wants a nicer home and a nicer car. Same thing with racers \u2013 they want to go faster. We had run out of real street racers on\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0to race and the producers started finding us races, and that\u2019s when you saw Pro Mods show up. All the other guys said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re in front of the world here. We got to step up our game. If we\u2019re going to be racing Pro Mods on the street, we got to do this.\u201d They did what they had to do to compete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AZN and I, we knew we couldn\u2019t compete. We just wanted to keep it simple. So we still have the same old Farmtruck. We put a bigger and better motor in it, but it\u2019s still streetable, and it\u2019s still what we wanted the show to be. Our last season, we were driving street cars, we were cruising, we were getting back to our roots. Everybody was having fun, no one was arguing. We were racing in other towns, other states. That was the best the show had been in a long, long time.<\/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

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Love:<\/strong>\u00a0I\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

Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0Well, it\u2019s gone too far for us, but not for them. They did it, and I\u2019m glad they stepped up and built these awesome cars to compete. People evolved and they got better at what they do. AZN and I, we\u2019re still stuck in the past.<\/p>\n

Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0I have to look at it from a business perspective, so it has gone beyond fun. It has gone beyond recreational weekend activities. It\u2019s now a business, and so the question is can you maintain a level of redneck loyalty with a business? That\u2019s to say have monster trucks gone too far and should return back to being trucks? Hell no. They can\u2019t have boring caricatures. They can\u2019t turn into NHRA where it\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m Scott and I\u2019m sponsored by A&A Attorney Company. It\u2019s been a good run this year.\u201d You got to lose this monotone; you got to reinvent the wheel a little bit. The cars have got to be fast, they\u2019ve got to be safe, but they\u2019ve got to be relatable in some regard. They\u2019ve got to find a lane outside of what NHRA is. Don\u2019t be NHRA; be something different.<\/p>\n

Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0That 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

Woods:<\/strong>\u00a0I 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

Love:<\/strong>\u00a0If 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

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Whitley:<\/strong>\u00a0No, we want to do what we want to do. We want to build cool stuff. We just got done with our \u201cFunny Farm,\u201d which is like a double truck, with two front ends. And we want to have a lot of fun creating stuff like that. We want to come to these tracks, do some grudge racing. We don\u2019t do much street stuff anymore. A lot of these small towns will block off the roads and let us race. We love that stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been invited to go out and race with the other guys [SPR], but we didn\u2019t hear from them in a long time and so we booked the whole year, and we really don\u2019t have it in our schedule to go this year. We love doing stuff like this at small tracks like Mo-Kan. There\u2019s lots of friendly people, a lot of hardcore\u00a0Street Outlaws<\/em>\u00a0fans that come out to see us.<\/p>\n

Bonnett:<\/strong>\u00a0Farmtruck and I, we\u2019re the zebras in the horse pen. We don\u2019t know exactly where we fit into that program. I have no doubt that Speed Promotions would open the gate and treat us well, but at the end of the day, we just don\u2019t know where we fit into that, and I don\u2019t know if they do. I\u2019m sure they\u2019d reserve us a pit area, let us meet the fans, and sell the merch.<\/p>\n

We found that in the past few seasons of being involved, the Farmtruck can\u2019t compete, so we\u2019re out there doing exhibition races. It\u2019s just tough for us, and we really rally for those guys to do well and we want that series to do well, but until we find our own lane in that series, we\u2019re just going to keep setting up garage sales across the nation and selling our wares, so we\u2019re cool with that. And if it don\u2019t work out, we\u2019re going to start an OnlyFans.<\/p>\n

The post Life Beyond \u2018Street Outlaws\u2019: Four Original Stars Talk Past, Present and Future<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a beautiful afternoon in early May, and Mo-Kan Dragway in Asbury, Missouri, is hosting the inaugural 405 Shootout. Although Speed Promotions Racing (formerly No Prep Kings) is hosting their season opener at Famoso Dragstrip near Bakersfield, California, on the same weekend, numerous OG\u00a0Street Outlaws\u00a0cast members are at Mo-Kan, including James \u201cDoc\u201d Love, Joe \u201cDominator\u201d […]<\/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-102659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102659","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=102659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}