Under the Hood.

MAKING COMPANIES GROW FAST IS NO EASY TASK. Increased sales usually come at the expense of profitability. The LATIN TRADE Hot Growth Companies featured in this month's cover story, however, achieve both roaring sales and piston-popping profits.

What makes them go is their focus. Mexico's Jugos del Valle concentrates on the business of selling juice, not just the liquid in the bottle. Result: CEO Roberto Albarran has souped up sales by charging multinational companies for using his distribution network.

Achieving this sort of high-speed performance requires preparation as well as innovation. Just ask Sergio Dorantes, our photographer in Mexico City. Determined to build racecars with his Italian pen pal, he set off for Bologna at the age of 17. When Sergio showed up on his pen pal's doorstep, he discovered that to build high-speed vehicles he needed an industrial design degree.

So Sergio got one--and much more. "Designing racecars is seasonal work; you build and test them in the winter and the drivers race them for the rest of year," he says. "I wanted to hang out in the pits, so I started taking photos:'

From those humble beginnings behind the guardrail, Sergio has become an accomplished international photographer. In addition to LATIN TRADE, his work appears regularly in Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, among many other publications. He is also uniquely qualified to take the portrait of Jugos del Valle's Albarran, who, apart from being CEO of Latin America's hottest company, is a former racecar driver.

Given the talents of these two, who says all those hours spent under the hood of a car were a waste of time?

Mike Zellner