More than eighty percent of America's lettuce is grown in Salinas, CA, earning it the nickname, "The Salad Bowl of America." Aside from lettuce, the city boasts one of the highest crime rates in the country, with violent gang-related crime leading the way.
An interesting mix to say the least, but there's much more. Over the past few years, the salad bowl has been pumping out more car enthusiasts than tomatoes, and the street scene has been blowing up; nearly surpassing the crime rate. The new question in Salinas is, what kind of dressing would you like with your Honda?
Jorge Sandoval came out of Salinas in awe of the Honda movement, not so impressed by the salad scene. While others were watching cartoons, Jorge was drooling over drag races. The sleek paint, slick bodies, and polished manifolds of cars replaced the hypnotic, glowing world of Disney movies. Tonka trucks? No thanks. GI Joes? Never. While other kids were building sand castles, Jorge was busy building B series motors. "Growing up, I had a family member who was into Hondas," said Jorge. "I'd always see the car around at family events, and the more I saw it, the more I dreamed of building my own Honda one day." As the old saying goes, monkey see, monkey do, especially if what one monkey is doing is so addictive.
As Jorge got older, he set out to learn everything he could in terms of cars, builds, and the street scene. "Street racing is really what got me into the car building world," he states. "I'd go out with my friends before we even had cars, and we'd just watch. It gave me the biggest adrenaline rush, and I fell in love with racing right then and there." Illegal, dangerous, yet highly addictive-street racing transformed Jorge from noob mechanic, to builder extraordinaire. "After high school, I enrolled at Wyotech Institute in Fremont, just so I could have a better understanding of car mechanics and how to get dirty," Jorge recalls.
After a year and a half of hands-on training, Jorge graduated with all the necessary skills to 'get dirty' and was quickly picked up by Firestone where he worked as a mechanic flushing fluids, tightening lugs, and switching rims. That's really where I learned how to do things on my own," said Jorge. "And if you can do things on your own, it makes cars even better. I started working on my first car, just learning as I went along. There were some bad experiences, but I learned from them." And like so many before him, Jorge had a few encounters with thieves in his time. Unlike many others, he never let it get him down. He just picked up where he left off, re-sourced his parts, and rebuilt his shattered dreams, one part at a time.
"This is actually the first build I've been able to complete. The last two cars I was trying to build were stolen from me before I was able to finish up. My black '95 GSR was stolen from my front driveway, and I had a blue EG hatch stolen at the mall in San Jose; found nine hours later-completely gutted." Ouch indeed.