What To Expect On Stab Highway East Coast (USA), presented by Monster Energy

All photos by Gunner Hughes.

It’s 8am on a Saturday.

I’ve been in Miami for three days. I’m sweating profusely, my voice is gone, and the phone in my pocket is buzzing with inbound messages like a fly that just won’t fuck off. In a few hours, all 16 of this year’s Stab Highway competitors will have arrived. There will also be nine filmers, one photographer, one social media producer, one referee, and me, the host/producer. 

We will pick teams. We will become best friends. We will become sworn enemies. And then, in 12 hours’ time — or less if you decide to have a big night out in Vice City — we will take off due north on an 11-day roadtrip unlike any road trip you’ve ever seen, let alone participated in.

What you won’t see are the months of pre-production that go into this annual project: The road map, the challenges, the planning, the re-planning, and the re-re-planning. Don’t forget about the rental vehicles. And then of course, there’s the filmers, the athletes, the athlete agents and managers, the brand partners, and so on. But I’ll save you from those strenuous details and get to the fun stuff. 

We’ve got another wild edition of Stab Highway on our hands, and I’ve come here to reveal a few things about what to expect on our feral pilgrimage from Miami to New York, including a first look at another season of blood, sweat, and beers…and tears.

Polarizing Personalities

Stab Highway is like truth serum. You’ll get to know yourself and those around you very quickly — for better or worse. In past seasons, we’ve seen villains, heroes, chillers, and a beef jerky salesman emerge as characters. I don’t want to give away too much about this season, but let’s just say some of our contestants were so chaotic, we had to walk a few videographers off the proverbial cliff on more than one occasion. Not that we’re massive fans of “drama,” but we do love character development, conflict, resolution, and narrative-driven storylines. I hope you’re ready for this one.

Fresh Faces

I feel lucky to be in the position of casting surfers for a handful of our projects. Our goal remains the same for every project. Talent comes first. Big names, big personalities. But, we also like to hold space for fresh faces who we think deserve more recognition. While filming Zipper, I stuck my neck out for Taro Watanabe. While some of you know his style, many of you hadn’t been acquainted. We thought that needed to change. Additionally, we tossed a lesser-known Joel Vaughan on Stab Highway Europe last year, and guess who made the 2025 WCT this year? You guessed it. Joel Vaughan. 

For this year’s edition of Stab Highway, you might scratch your head at a few of the names that we’ve included in the cast… and that’s fine. Our goal is to give these surfers the opportunity to showcase their talents to you, our beautiful audience, in hopes of developing more stars in our space. This year, we’ve got Gabriel Morvil, Kobe Hughes, Mia Calderon, and Samantha Sibley. We hope you like them.

Guest Appearances

There’s a finite number of interactions you can manufacture when 16 professional surfers are placed in a room together. But what about when you release them into the wild, on the east coast of the United States, where an estimated 118 million people live? Well, that’s where the magic happens. 

This year we crossed paths with some of east coast’s finest specimens, and their mostly unexpected cameos did not disappoint. Off the top of my head, those names include Eric Geiselman, Evan Geiselman, Kelly Slater (kinda), Shea Lopez, CJ Hobgood, Lisa Anderson, Brett Barley, Blair Wiggins, Justin Quintal, Jack Tenney (JoogSquad), Dean Randazzo, Mike Gleason, Ryan Miller, Seth Stafford, Blayr Barton, and Owen Moss. 

Jet Skis

Lots of ‘em. 

A Bit Of Vomit 

Anthony Bourdain once said, “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” With that logic and a bit of overindulgence, we’ve successfully achieved, consumed, and subsequently regurgitated a shit ton of culture across many state lines on the east coast. Was it excessive? Sure. Was it entertaining? Definitely. But at least we didn’t have to perform any Heimlich maneuvers (skip to 23:43).

Southern Hospitality

Okay, this might just be Cam Richards. But if this season of Highway doesn’t make you a super fan of Cam (and his dad), you’re lying to yourself.

Did You Die?

We haven’t always been the best at prioritizing human health and safety with some of the things we’ve done here at Stab (see: The Dock), but we consider the entertainment value in everything. Generally, we ask ourselves: Is this something that we would like to watch ourselves? If the answer is yes, we continue. If we answer no, it’s back to the drawing board. 

This year we had a big scare on the first day of Stab Highway and a big scare on the last day of Stab Highway — a nicely bookended project, some might say. I’ll keep the causes a secret. But I’ll let you know that when shit got real, a Stab Premium subscriber who happened to be at the beach saved the day. Shout out to you, Stab Premium subscriber. 

That’s all for now. We look forward to showing you what went down on that extremely long road trip from Miami to New York City.

Episode One drops on Thursday, January 23, only on Stab Premium. We’ll see you at the starting line.