The late nineties on the North Shore was a gnarly time. There was a ghetto at V-Land, a lot of low income Hawaiian housing, and just a lot more gangster style living going on. A lot of people who came to surf just didn’t have that respect level. It was a free for all at Pipe, kinda like the Bronzed Aussie time where everyone was coming in and thinking they’re killing it.
In 2000 I was 17 and I’d just been dropped by my sponsor. I’d been kicked out of the NSSA Nationals for cheating on my high school Report card. so I got dropped by Rip Curl a week later. That was the year I was gonna win it. It was my goal, I was so deadset on it, then the kids I was staying with dobbed me in. I was devastated. You win the nationals and it’s your token to everything – big contracts, all that.
I flew straight home and started working, landscaping, painting, just fucken hustling from August till October. All the time I’m just thinking fuck the industry, fuck everybody. I’m just gonna go the North Shore and surf. I moved in with Braden (Dias), and Kai Borg, Chava (Greenleigh). All the gnarliest guys lived in the one house, Bruce, Andy, everyone. Braden paid for everything – food, beer, three meals a day, beer all day, he took care of everybody. He was riding for Hurley at the time and getting good money. This was when he was the guy at Pipe.
So I see my old team manager at Haleiwa Joes for some big Triple Crown party and we almost scrap right there. Strider (Wasilewski) grabs me and he’s like, what are you doing, brah, c’mon let’s get out of there. Then the next morning I see him in the yard next to Sunny’s (Garcia) place and we ended up squaring off and scrapping. I was at a point in my life where I was trying to prove myself, I was a young punk and I wanted to be the man. So I ended up beating him up and then afterwards we have the who’s who from his company on the porch, all the bosses, everything. I told them all, ‘All you rich fucken pricks, fuck you. While you’re driving your Range Rovers I’m eating Noodle soup. Fuck you.’ And I walked out and that was the beginning of the Wolfpak overthrow. The company reps started coming in the house and saying you can’t do that and Chava was like, ‘Brah, fuck you. Don’t tell my boys what do!.’ Right there a lot of people, anyone who dropped in, it got super heavy from that point on. That’s how the regulating started. It was always going on somewhat but that kicked it to the next level. A lot of people who dropped in got slapped. It wasn’t just people on the bike track starting shit, like, ‘What’s up you fucken kook.’ It was like, you committed attempted murder, you dropped in on someone in a life threatening situation. That was the beginning of that whole era, getting things back into a respectful form. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re respectful to the boys you’ll get your waves. But from that point on it was a little more, get out of the way and earn your Respect.
– Dustin Barca (as told to Jed Smith)
Follow Jed on twitter: https://twitter.com/Jed_J_Smith
For more, check out the full profile of Dustin Barca in the Tracks Hawaii Issue, out February.
