Slater Skins

Company Bio
Established in 1995 by John C. Slater, founder and CEO.

John started riding at the age of 6 with guidance from his father. A year later he started racing. In 1976 he saw his first Pro race live at Unadilla in upper state NY, the Trans AMA and saw Roger DeCoster, Adolph Weil, Rex Staton on Harley Davidson, Gerrit Wolsink, Marty Smith, Tommy Croft, and Jim Pomeroy all racing there. Over the next sixteen years, John started racing pro, with his most memorable moment being when he qualified in 1992 for the Unadilla 250 USGP. John has also watched the legendary races between Bob Hannah and Kent Howerton at Southwick. At this point John had decided he wanted to be involved with Motocross for life. John had the opportunity to see the 1987 Trophe DeNations at Unadilla. 

He moved from the East coast to the West coast in the early 90’s to start his first motocross business. After a few years decided to refocus his efforts back on the East Coast in Connecticut and started SRP Slater Racing Products where he introduced SLATER SKINS.

SRP manufactures SLATER SKINS, full body panels made from polypropylene, high impact, heat resistant plastic. This material is very durable and is paintable, unlike many other plastics. SLATER SKINS are a set of streamlined panels designed especially to help promote the off-road racing sport by giving corporate sponsors 1,200 square inches of advertising space which is 900 square inches larger than the stock panels.

John promoted, built and designed Arena crosses in New Haven, CT at the New Haven coliseum, as well as promoting Monster Trucking events there. He sold sponsorships on the SLATER SKINS and hired riders for the Arena cross. The largest sponsor he brought in for these Arena Events was Foxwoods Casino.

SRP has worked with Mike Metzger, Mike Jones, Kenny Bartram and Jeremy Stenberg in the freestyle market. Metzger won the Vans Triple Crown while sporting the SLATER SKINS. Freestyle has gotten the attention of Corporate America with the introduction of NBC’s Gravity Games and X-Games. The 2000 Gravity Games had even more riders sporting SLATER SKINS including Mike Jones.

SLATER SKINS were First, Second and Third on the Saturday Gravity games. The Sunday games showed the Second and Third place riders with the SLATER SKINS.

Because of the coverage at the Gravity games, John was able to get SoBe to sponsor a freestyle rider, Kenny Bartram who subsequently became injured just before the X-Games. John and SoBe then managed to hire on Trevor Vines to replace Kenny Bartram in time for the X-Games. SoBe continues to sponsor Trevor Vines and Team SoBe Suzuki Motocross.