MATT REYNOLDS, Journalist
Role: hunt leader
Reynolds grew up in Lyons, a small town in New York State, and after moving to ex-communist Europe in 1998 made it his mission to introduce Buffalo wings to the Slavs of central Europe. He dreamed up the hunt at a bar in Bratislava, Slovakia. As a journalist, expat and native upstate New Yorker, he believes he is uniquely qualified to lead the search for the world's best wing.
ALEX ROY, road rally champ
Role: associate producer
One of Manhattan's biggest wing buffs, Roy is an outlaw rally racer in his other life. He holds the record for non-stop driving from New York to L.A. His upcoming documentary, 32 Hours 7 Minutes, will tell his story. Roy met Reynolds during the 2005 Gumball Rally in Prague, Czech Republic.
BEN "MIGHTY THOR" BEAVERS, competitive eater
Role: official judge
A 340-pound woodwright from Rochester, New York, Thor holds titles in pizza, wing, and ice cream eating. He placed fifth at the 2007 National Buffalo Wing Festival, wolfing down 87 wings in 12 minutes.
LUCIE MAYEROVA, social worker
Role: judge/statkeeper
A native of Czech Republic and Reynolds' girlfriend, Lucie become a wing expert during the hunt and was an influential voice during deliberations to pick the world's best wing. Lucie gathered and collected all the data from the hunter's scorecards and relayed it to a research team based in Michigan.
RIC KEALOHA, Chef, Med student
Role: culinary authority
Ric, a former chef from Hawaii, gave up a career in food to study medicine in Prague, Czech Republic. He's been a wing buff since the late 1980s. Ric stuck by his commitment to go on the hunt even though his wife gave birth just days before it started. He ended up taking first prize at the National Buffalo Wing Festival amateur sauce competition.
Role: official judge
Al lives in South Butler, a hamlet near Syracuse, New York. A self-taught musician, Al plays folk, blues, and jazz. He is writing the film’s theme, a Dylan-esque ballad recounting each stop on the trip. Al has been eating wings for more than 40 years.
DREW "Wing King" CERZA, National Buffalo Wing Festival director
Role: associate producer
America's most famous wing buff, Cerza joined the hunt in Manhattan and welcomed the hunters at the National Buffalo Wing Festival, which he founded in 2002. Inventor of Buffalo wing chowder, Cerza took on (and beat) the Food Network’s Bobby Flay in a wing throwdown in 2007.
MARTIN DINGA, Slovak actor
Role: official judge
Dinga discovered wings at a party thrown by Matt Reynolds in Bratislava, Slovakia and has been a wing buff ever since. Patient and even-keeled, Dinga helped the hunters stick together when nerves wore thin.
RON WIESZCZYK, hot-sauce maker, closet musician
Role: second-in-command
A native of Niagara Falls, Ron witnessed the rise of the wing in the Buffalo area in the late 1960s and 1970s. A technician at Kodak, Ron is also a pepper-grower, hot-sauce maker and amateur musician. In the 80s, he made an album of pop music on a Commodore 64. The album's single, 'Beaver Island', was a hit in Japan and became the hunt's unofficial anthem.
ZUZA PIUSSI, Slovak filmmaker
A friend of Reynolds' from Bratislava, Piussi came to the U.S. "to understand his passion for wings, to understand why he quit his job to go on this trip." The hunt is a departure from her previous work, including Crying of Angels (2005), about Slovak gays, and Koliba (2007), about the history of Slovak film.
DOUG "FISHEYE" BRANTNER, Cameraman
Fisheye majors in film, with a focus on cinematography (his pun) at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). A hard-ass among slackers, Fisheye kept the hunt's gear working and its cast and crew on task. After graduation in 2008, he wants to shoot documentaries and moonlight as a roadie.
CASEY PALEOS, psychiatrist, film buff
Role: Assistant director
In their college days, Casey gave Reynolds a starring role in a one-minute film, "Matt Reynolds' Moves". Bootleg copies of the film are now fetching upwards of $5,000 on eBay. Casey helped develop the film's themes and meaning. He also encouraged Reynolds to quit his job, return home and devote himself to the trip. Today, Casey roams the passageways of New York's famous Bellevue Hospital, on the right side of the padded walls, for the time being.
