Each driver in “Street Outlaws” has something undeniably unique which makes them worth remembering. While some of them are flashy or funny, others are unrelenting and competitive.
Whether you like his cool demeanor or the fact that he’s one of the less problematic drivers in the show, the truth is that it’s not easy to forget who Dominator is. The many years he’s spent racing on Oklahoma’s streets have allowed him to keep a secure place on The List for years.
Nonetheless, despite the many years he has been in the show, there’s still a lot of unsaid information about Dominator, such as his life off-camera, his career prior to the show, his business, and his family life.
So whatever is it that Dominator does when he’s not fast-driving his cars on the Oklahoma race circuits? Keep with us to know all!
Where Does He Work In?
Although people usually assume that life as a reality TV star could be highly profitable, that’s not necessarily true in all cases.
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While some celebrities might be earning millionaire salaries, others surprisingly maintain a more down-to-earth lifestyle, being only modestly rewarded.
The latter case describes Dominator well. Although the man, whose real name is Joe Woods, has been in “Street Outlaws” since its premiere in 2013, he actually still has the same real life job he had prior to achieving international fame.
Dominator’s car fabrication business is more of a family tradition than anything else. His father’s and uncle’s knowledge as fabricators, engine builders and painters was passed down to him, and he also inherited their committed work routine and ethics.
Although he admitted that managing his time filming “Street Outlaws” while taking care of his shop was challenging, it was unthinkable to step away from his life-craft: ‘When the show does come to an end, I’ll do the same thing that I’ve done all my life’, Dominator affirmed.
Joe’s shop is fairly full of cars of all types, making it hard to distinguish between those part of his large collection, and those owned by his customers. As seen in an interview with DragZine in 2016, Joe uses his fabrication skills to fix everything ‘racecar-related’, including headliners, nitrous systems and even plumbing.
What Is Dominator Doing Now?
With all the “Street Outlaws” spin-offs which air all year long, it must be hard for the show’s fans to keep up to date with whatever their favorite drivers are doing nowadays.
Nonetheless, there is always good news when it comes to Joe Woods. Although it’s been a while since “Street Outlaws” last aired on Discovery, Dominator’s appearances in the “No Prep Kings” series have been a constant in the last year.
While all the No Prep races scheduled for 2020 were postponed several times due to that year’s pandemic contingency, in early 2021 motorheads and viewers alike were glad to see the 405 drivers come back to the race tracks more powerful than ever.
While Dominator couldn’t make it to some race events early in the year, he was pretty much present for the “No Prep Kings” fourth season, which premiered later in October. Though it’s been quite a long time since Dominator last entered the No Prep’s leaderboard, there’s no doubt that his races are as entertaining as ever.
Who’s Dominator?
As the son of a man who ‘never stopped working other than to eat’, it’s somewhat expected that Joe Woods would grow up to be a hard-working man. Although his car shop took a slightly different route than the mechanics and fabricators from his family used to do for a living, Dominator doesn’t forget where he comes from.
We're serving up even MORE unseen #StreetOutlaws #Bristol action TONIGHT at 9p. Check this sh** out — @DaddyDave_okc and #Dominator tried to hijack a truck! pic.twitter.com/cpQsQ4HFC8
— Street Outlaws (@StreetOutlaws) January 3, 2018
As the website No Prep Racing reported, the first time Joe took a steering wheel on his own was when he was only three years old. Though his childish trick of telling his brother to press the car’s pedals while he moved the car ended up with his family’s truck crashing into the neighbors’ van, the incident is one his earliest and funniest anecdotes to tell nowadays.
His fascination with cars wouldn’t end there though. During his childhood, Joe’s enviable talent with mechanics resulted in him learning how to take apart and put together a carburettor just by looking at his father doing so, but it was his curiosity that eventually led him to specialize as a mechanic and fabricator later in life. His passion for everything-automotive eventually put him on the street racing scene in Oklahoma, and furthered his love for muscle cars, out of which he counts ‘Road Runners, Super Bees, Chevelles and Camaros’ as the ones he came to look-up to.
Early Career
Living so near to 405 Highway, it wasn’t strange that Joe became so interested in the car industry. As well, it meant no one even raised an eyebrow when he was given his first car when only 13 years old.
That 1956 Chevy Bel Air 2 probably meant a lot to the then-young Dominator, but making it drivable actually took him a couple of years and a lot of fixing. At 15 years old Joe finally drove his car for the first time only to crash it against 20 fence posts while going at 130mph a couple of months later, putting a premature end to that early adventure.
Although there aren’t many details about how Joe got into racing and how his first experiences in the scene went back then, the story of how he adopted his nickname fits a man as simple but sincere as he is.
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The name ‘Dominator’ comes from a mid-century Sedan Delivery baptized with the same name. Joe used to like that particular automobile so much that he used it as his alias when he set-up an account on a buy-and-sell website of vintage articles. Afterwards, the name simply stuck with him.
His Cars
Besides being a speed-lover and an expert mechanic and builder, Joe Woods is also a committed car collector.
However, don’t let the term confuse you. Although collectors are usually well money-wise, the truth is that Dominator is not rich in any way. As he explained to DragZine, the reason he has had as many as ’24 cars at one time’ is because he buys incomplete cars to either fix them or put their good parts on other cars: ‘I just pick them up when it’s a good deal,’ he admitted.
Nonetheless, buying cars doesn’t always end up as planned for Dominator.
As he affirms, sometimes he just grows so attached to a car that it ends up as an unfinished project for some time. Other times, when he’s fixed them, he isn’t able to sell them for sentimental reasons.
That same sensible side is quite visible while looking at his collection. That 1956 Chevy Bel Air 2 he had as his first car is surprisingly still in his garage, waiting for Dominator to fix the damage resulting from that time he crashed, decades ago. Other cars from a variety of fabricators, including Novas, Darts and even a very rare 1966 426 Hemi Satellite could be found too. Out of those, the icing on the cake is his long-time race partner, the 1967 Dodge Dart we see him driving in the show.
Career On TV
Although he might not be the most talkative guy in “Street Outlaws”, it’s impossible to ignore Dominator. His debut in the series was back in the first season aired in 2013 and though he has been a constant in it ever since, his position on The List has been getting harder to maintain, due to the increasing competition and growing skill of his rivals.
His loyal Dodge Dart has always given a 100% on the road, an accomplishment which Dominator is hugely proud about, as it’s both the product of his own inventiveness as a mechanic and skills as a driver. However, no matter how good his performance on the tracks is, given that his Dodge Dart is powered by a Chevrolet engine, some purists consider his car close to an abomination.
Though that easily ignored detail about his automobile only became evident due to the exposure Dominator has in “Street Outlaws”, he’s never regretful of his decision to not ‘have a Mopar under the hood’, considering it a cheaper and easier way to make everything work.
As motivation to be in the show, Dominator considers that the media’s focus on races is positive for the community, and keeps people interested in the local race scene, which has apparently been about to disappear in recent years. His worry about the future of the racing community and fellow drivers only makes more evident how truly committed he is to it.
Social Media Presence
While Dominator’s activity on Instagram might not be the greatest, it’s a different story when it comes to Facebook. His feed on the platform is full with updates related to his races, “Street Outlaws” and “No Prep Kings”, videoblogs, and sometimes even shows his support of other projects of the franchise that he doesn’t appear in.
Besides social media, Dominator’s official website let’s his followers know about his upcoming events and public appearances. Though the shop section doesn’t offer a wide variety of personalized merchandise, some products such as hoodies, tops, shorts and die casts are found there for quite a cheap price.
So far, Dominator doesn’t have a public YouTube account, but he’s often featured on specialized motorhead’s channels such as 1320video and Urban Hill Billy Videos.
Net Worth
Reportedly, “Street Outlaws” stars earn some impressive numbers thanks to the show.
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While the exact salary each is paid is unknown, the fact that some of the drivers’ net worth is into the millions, makes it obvious that some of them might be earning quite a lot of money.
However, this couldn’t be more untrue when it comes to Dominator. Though it’s a known fact that fame hasn’t kept him away from his life-craft and working in his shop, it’s also partially because he’s not quite as financially well-off as some might think. As he admitted to the Street Muscle Magazine in 2016, in order to afford his then recently-acquired Chevrolet engine, he had to sell part of his car collection as he didn’t have any sponsors back then to afford the change: ‘this one hurt in the initial hit but will be my best bang for the buck at this level’, he admitted, referring to the newly-added part.
Nowadays his presence on social media is larger compared to how it was back when said interview took place, making it unsurprising to find several sponsorships on his Facebook’s feed.
Nonetheless, while some sources affirm his net worth is $600,000, this estimation could be quite unrealistic.
Does He Need A License To Drive?
Given that “Street Outlaws” seemingly promotes the concept of illegal street racing, it’s not surprising that not everyone sees the show through rose-coloured glasses.
This situation almost had very negative repercussions for the drivers back in 2015, when the National Hot Rod Association warned them that appearing in the apparently problematic show might ruin their chances of ever participating in the organization’s future events. Though the situation fortunately didn’t go as far as to affect them directly, the whole issue let the audience see some unexpected and previously unknown details about the show, such as how the drivers actually have licenses for racing despite promoting it as illegal. Even more, their events are approved and even supervised by local authorities wherever they go.
While this information might not have been taken positively by a certain part of the audience, the support shown to the car’s stars overshadowed that.
Was “Street Outlaws” Cancelled?
Much to the joy of its fans, “Street Outlaws” hasn’t been cancelled; in fact, quite the contrary.
Although the show scared fans by taking a year-long hiatus from TV in 2020 due to the inconveniences the COVID-19 caused for filming and producing, at the end of that year the 17th season was announced to premiere in January 2021. At the same time, a new show entitled “Mega Cash Days” premiered, featuring all stars from the show, though this time they didn’t compete in teams, but raced alone to win the desired $600,000 prize.
Following the end of both shows’ seasons, another spin-off entitled “America’s List” premiered. The new show features weekly competitions between drivers from several cities of the US, including the guys from Oklahoma’s 405, the Memphis Team and those of No Prep, who competed to win $100,000 in cash and being named the “Fastest In America”. Afterwards, Discovery premiered the “Street Outlaws” spin-off “Gone Girls”, which followed the endeavors of the best professional female race drivers in the country.
All in all, it seems that the “Street Outlaws” franchise only keeps growing and succeeding. That surely makes it even more difficult for drivers to gain a top spot in it, but also continues to make it as interesting as ever.
