1973 GMC "Strong Roots"

For the 2018 SEMA Show, Finish Line Speed Shop and "Project Giving Back" have decided to build a 1978 GMC C10 truck. Our cause will be for raising awareness about Cancer in honor of an amazing woman, Julie Nichols. Sadly, Julie lost her fight with Colon Cancer in December of 2016.

​​

Love is Stronger than Cancer.......

Julie Nichols was born January 18, 1973. Julie had four boys Cj (25), Austin (19), Pono (9), Mycah (8) and she had her soulmate Alapai, the self-admitted biggest child of them all. Julie was just 43 years old when she died of Colon Cancer. 5 years prior to her Stage Four Colon Cancer diagnosis, Julie created a clothing and lifestyle brand, Strong Roots. A brand that exquisitely detailed how important family and children should be in our lives. One of Julies central goals was to remind people to work to lay a strong foundation for our children by handing down the values and simplicities of our own childhood. “These are two gifts that we can give our children.....roots and wings” Julie had no idea that the few years she was building a clothing brand that was clearly making a difference in people’s lives, it was her own family that would truly use this lifestyle as a foundation to fight her ugly diagnosis.

Julie was many things—an amazing mother, daughter, sister and wife, a talented artist, a fantastic massage therapist, a lover of life who traveled to places as far as Japan to perform with her talented Hula ability, a lover of

adventure and most of all, Julie was a FIGHTER. Julie was 41 at the time she was given 3-6 months to live. She refused to look at any CT scan and instead took their treatment plan, allied that plan with living her life to the fullest capacity, kept her family ground with her Strong Roots mission and FOUGHT hard for 25 months. During those 25, her best friend and husband Alapai became her caregiver. Not only did he help her through living as normal life as she could in this tough world, when the time came for Julie to enter hospice, Alapai never left Julie’s side. He was her Strong Root.

​​

Project Giving Back; “When life brings you full circle, pay attention. There’s a lesson there” Alapai and his father Gary Nichols decided to build a truck in honor of their beautiful Julie. It’s the truck she would have dreamed of. However, living in Hawaii, this required extensive RESEARCH. After narrowing their likes down to a few companies, the two boarded a plane for a little town called Bremerton, Washington. Where the builder of a 1975 Chevrolet C-10 that they fell in love with lived. After a face to face meeting, Lyon and Alapai formulated a plan to start the build of Project Strong Roots, Julie’s HotRod.
Unknowing of Project Giving Back, Alapai and his father Gary found Finish Line because of a dream that Finish Line had started, the desire to Give Back. This resonated with Jennifer for days. Thus, began the discussion between the two families, SEMA’s next Project Giving Back needed to be Project Strong Roots.