Photos by Blair Caldwell
The last Sultans of Speed was in the dead of winter of January 2009 and we had to sweep mounds of sand out of the road and ended up with the cops called and one pissed off woman that tried to ruin every other outlaw race on the east coast she could. This year Nick Harris was the man and brought the race back in a different township of Pennsylvania, on a new hill that was even better and in the summer so we weren’t all freezing body parts off.
I love Justin, without him I wouldn’t be where I’m at in my life both in skating and every other aspect because he is one of the biggest motivators I’ve ever met. He always pushed me in skating and was always the guy that was going all out on whatever he was doing at the moment. He’s a true inspiration and this is another interview that I am so happy to share with everyone.
- Anthony
Chris “OH NO!” Buono did this interview with Sean before their trip to Buffalo Bill out in Rado and it was sent to me right after Sean won TMMR. Sean is an awesome guy who just showed up one day and was ripping. After having spent the night at his house and getting to know his family he is by far one of the coolest, most together people I have ever met. This interview is a treat to read and should fuel your stoke and maybe make you go “awwww.”
Photo Credits: Blair Caldwell, Crystal Graves, Nick Grasso 
Chris – I recently got a chance to take Sean Graves out to show him a small piece of DC secret Gnar for a short DH session. It was a blast with Sean Graves, Christian Montoya and myself, flying past cars in the dead of night passing through the glow of street lights filing 3 wide in to a nasty right hair pin. I have been racing with Sean for about 2 years now. He’s a hell of a racer, and will smoke you if you’re paying attention or not! Not only is he a great skater in which every event I have been too he takes one of the top 8 positions, but one of the nicest straight forward people I know. One thing above all that I believe goes over looked among young men and women skaters is that he is a young family man. We have all seen Sean’s family at Phat Deanz or on the side lines cheering him on at the races. I have never seen such a happy young family!
So Sean: Tell me about yourself
Sean – Well I am 27 years old and have been with my wife Crystal for 9 years and married for 5. We have 4 crazy kids Kaydenc(5), Lorelei(4), Finnley(2), and Davionn(1) who make my life so amazing. To help support my habit and family I work as a loan officer for CitiFinancial.
This is one of the best East Coast events, if not the best, that I have been to since Munnsville. Thanks so much to Jamie Reis for putting it on and taking care of all of us. Special thanks to all the sponsors and to Phat Dean for letting us rape his truck. Here is Jamie’s recap of the event. Photo credits go to Blair Caldwell and Crystal Graves.
For months everything had seemed to be going smoothly; sponsors were emailing left and right, and a handful of riders were calling each day for details. By the time race day came I had a list of over 100 riders that had planned to come out for either the novice race or TMMR. As the days passed and the list of people grew, so did my stoke and anxiety. I had been lucky enough to find this gem of a hill about a year and a half ago, and its amazing to have found such a killer course amongst really cool neighbors with barely any through traffic! The anxiety came with the fact that I couldn’t pull off a backup hill that would come anything even close to the race hill. WIth a week until race weekend, the weather forecast looked pretty promising, and I began to plan for the epic camp! At first I had told the woman that it looked like we would be having around 35 people. That number fluctuated over the next five days up to over 55 people, and settled back down around 45. I wasn’t quite sure what we were getting into with this place, as the woman working there told me that 35 people, 12 cars, and 12 tents would be a squeeze. This situation, thankfully, diverted my attention away from being busted at the hill and any potentially bad weather forecast. After all, camping was definitely not the biggest of my concerns for the weekend.
1st Sean Graves (Phat Deanz, Rayzor Tattoos)
2nd Anthony Flis (Comet, East Coast Board Co.)
3rd Michael Rubin
4th Alex Newton (Soda Factory)
Full story coming later in the week
Anton Milioti is the man behind Tutone skateboards, a new company coming out of Jersey/Philly area. I’ve known him for years now, since the days of Munnsville, and he’s always been a cool guy. Although he could easily be younger than you there is no denying his involvement with the longboard community for the past few years with the slide jams he’s put on and the stoke he brings to sessions. I thought this would be a great interview to do not only to help out a friend but show what stoke and a passion for skating really looks like.
You’ve been a part of the east coast scene for a long time now even though you’re younger than most of the other OG’s how’d you get involved in skating?
I have been skateboarding for close to 6 years now, its always been the top priority in my life. I was a street skater at first, then my dad got himself a longboard to simulate surfing when the waves were bunk. I gave it a push around the neighborhood, and from that point on I was hooked. I remember going to my first event, Broadway Bomb 2006. Seeing 200 other gnarly boarders charging and creating a street riot is what got me really wanting to go to as many events as i could. Also a lot of the locals (Nick Harris, Mason Holden, Matt Milazo) showed me the sliding and downhill aspect of skateboarding. those old Valley Forge sessions are still the most fun i had on a board ever, my first true speed sessions!
Thanks to all the sponsors! That’s a hell of a list of supporters! Everyone should buy things from these companies since they’re throwing down for us we should throw down for them!
The East Coast “kids of the future:” Chris Ono Buono, Pat Schep, Keith Rebhorn and Jeremy Ross went on an epic spring break journey to the fabled mountains of the Old South and the images you are about to see are indeed from this trip and are actually on the East Coast. The trip they took is something we all dream of and I am so happy to help them share this experience. There is nothing like getting your friends in a car, forgetting the real world, and just going to find and conquer the gnarliest terrain in your way. Buckle up for their tale of what the word stoke really means.
Anthony – Pat give me a quick run down of your trip.
Pat Schep – After spending much of the winter virtually exploring the NC mountains on google maps, I knew where I wanted to spend my spring break. I invited a lot of people to come out and spend the week with us in NC, but in the end it just ended up being myself, Keith Rebhorn, Chris Buono, and we met up with Jeremy Ross for a bit once we were in NC. We started the week with an itinerary and a list of hills we wanted to hit…. but we then ended up just winging the whole week and just playing things by ear. The week is one long blur of skating, sleeping, drinking, and just hanging out in awesome places with some of my best friends.
