JOE WOODS LIGHTS THE TIRES IN HIS‘ 67 DODGE DART. 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’ m like,“ These are all back-half cars, full-blown big tire, three-kit nitrous deals.” I didn’ t even pay my money to get into Cash Days. That’ s 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’ s where I started. BONNETT: That’ s 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’ s 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’ s what keeps us motivated, that’ s what keeps us going – because we know how good we actually have it. WHITLEY: Talking about memories and favorite moments … my 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’ re not related, he’ s 20 years younger than me and it was like watching my boy. We built the car, we raced the car, and that’ s one of my fondest memories.
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As things progressed, it wasn’ t 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? WHITLEY: Well, first of all, you mentioned spin-off shows. I think we, or Street Outlaws, set a record for the most spin-off shows in any reality TV show series. We’ re proud of that. WOODS: 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’ re building these rigs, I’ m 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’ ve been building and working on cars since I was a kid. I would race in the street and chase the oilfield stuff. I couldn’ t keep up. We had some disagreements at work, and I was like,“ It’ s time.” It was not a hard decision. I stepped away from that and focused on the show. LOVE: 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 No Prep Kings. I did Mega Cash Days, and something else. I can’ t remember what the other one was, but I filmed four shows. I never made America’ s List, so I could have been doing five, maybe even six shows.
It cost me my career. I couldn’ t 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’ t want to be a diesel mechanic. I’ m tired of working on diesels. My hands hurt, arthritis, shoulder, back. I chose the path to do something I love. Even though we’ ve 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. BONNETT: I think what you saw was an expedited evolution of car guys. We start out racing go-karts,
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