10-4 Magazine December 2021

After forming Soza & Sons Trucking, he went out on his own with one truck and a set of flatbed doubles. Hauling cardboard out of Save Mar t Supermarket’s distribution center in Merced to be recycled, Corny moved three loads a day to the Bay area, by himself, seven days a week. Eventually, he got a second set of trailers and hired an owner-operator to pull them. Wearing a cowboy hat to hide his young face, C.G. would go out with his dad to help when needed. A few years later, at just 17 years old (1992), C.G. got his CDL and could now legally help out. Going to church with a guy who worked in management at Blue Diamond Almonds, C.G. was able to get a seasonal driving job with them at 18 years old because they were self-insured (nobody would insure an 18-year-old kid with no documented experience). This was his first real trucking job, and he was paid $18 an hour to pull double flatbeds and hopper bottoms with a 2-axle 1990 Volvo. The season only lasted about four months, so C.G. enrolled in college because he thought it might be cool to get a business degree. That lasted for about a year. After his second season at Blue Diamond Almonds, C.G. quit school and bought his first truck at just 20 years old – a 2-axle 1989 Freightliner cabover with a 48” sleeper and a 3406B CAT – and formed Soza Trucking. Although this CAT was rated at 425 horsepower, it was a dog. Getting married in 1996, C.G. and his first wife had two kids – a daughter named Kiersten (24) and a son they call C.J. (22). Following in the Soza tradition, their son was named Cornelio James but always called C.J. C.G.’s father-in-law was a CAT mechanic, so after a few visits and a few adjustments, he had C.G.’s lethargic CAT roaring like a lion. C.G. loved to “walk away” from his dad when climbing the hills, as they were both horsepower freaks. Around 2000, Corny sold his company and retired, leaving C.G. to figure out his next move. Deciding that he wanted to try something different, C.G. bought a new 3-axle 2000 Freightliner Classic with a 72” walk-in sleeper and star ted hauling produce to Las Vegas, NV for Raley’s Supermarkets, after they opened a few locations there. Running to Vegas every day for two years, in 2002 C.G. and his wife decided to divorce. Selling his truck later that year, C.G. took a little time off to get things in order and then took a driving job at Blue Line Distribution in 2003. This was the transpor tation arm of Little Caesars Pizza and, later, TCBY Yogur t. C.G. stayed there for three years. During this time, he got married and had another son. A.J. (Adrian John) was born in 2004 and C.G. married Windley in 2005. In 2006, C.G. decided to take a break from trucking and opened an auto repair shop in Merced. The following year, he bought a Subway Sandwich franchise and opened it in Hughson, CA. The next year, he bought a second location in Merced, CA, and the next year (2009) he added yet another, that was situated at the cour thouse 10-4 Magazine / December 2021 11 in Merced, CA. Around 2012, he sold the second and third locations to pay off the first one and continued to operate it. In 2014, after going out in a truck with a friend, he sold his last Subway franchise and decided it was time to get back into trucking (tax hikes and minimum wage increases were killing his profits, too). Ordering a brand-new Kenwor th in 2015, the one seen here, C.G. went back to trucking, pulling a set of red double bottom dumps he bought, hauling clay and petroleum coke. These products were very dir ty, and C.G. hated that he couldn’t keep his truck clean, so after a year he star ted looking for other work. Unfor tunately, at that time, his truck was a single axle, which made it hard to find work. When ordered, this 2016 Kenwor th W900L with a 36” sleeper was not only a 2-axle, but it wasn’t nearly as fancy as it is today. It did, however, have the same paint job, in Deep Tropical Blue and Flame Red, as that was ordered and done at the factory. Reconnecting with a friend from high school who was hauling cars, C.G. went to work with him as a subhauler, pulling a 7-car transpor t. With vir tually no training, C.G. picked up his first load of cars in Benicia, CA (near San Francisco) in May 2016, which just happened to be a full load of brand-new Nissans. The first few weeks was tough, but once he star ted to figure things out and get the hang of it, he really star ted enjoying hauling cars. Unfor tunately, C.G.’s life changed rather suddenly just a few months later.