19 yr. old Dusty Payne was doing a fine job of making this year’s Vans Triple Crown of Surfing his coming out party. If you had yet to hear of the young ripper from Maui, you have now. Heading into his Round 3 heat at the Pipeline Masters yesterday, there was loads of hype surrounding the possibility of Dusty becoming the youngest Triple Crown winner ever. Payne unleashed stellar performances at Haleiwa and Sunset, he surfed the early rounds at Pipe in a way that left many calling him a young Bruce Irons….and then Parko happened.

To say Joel Parkinson came into their Round 3 match-up under the radar would be an overstatement. It would be impossible for a surfer with the resume of Parko to do so. But this being the end of, by Joel’s own standards, a disappointing 2008, it seemed possible that the smoking Payne could continue his run all the way to Triple Crown glory. Not very far into their heat, Parko slammed the door shut by coming out of a “there’s no way in hell he’s making it out of this one” Backdoor barrel. The second he slipped out from under the wave, everyone knew it, perfect 10. A few minutes later he did what only Kelly Slater and Shane Beschen had done before him, he smoked another Backdoor pit for a second 10 and essentially closed the door on the young Hawaii upstart. “I couldn’t have done anything,”said Dusty,”It’s hard to get 11s.” While Joel was obviously stoked beyond belief, he was quick to put it all in perspective, “I never thought I would get two perfect 10s,” Parkinson said. “It’s not something you hear about every day, so I’d never really thought about doing it. I definitely claimed it like I had won an event for a second, but then I had to settle down and tell myself, ‘All you did was make a heat!’ The next heat I paddle out for, I’ll have to remember that.”

To this day, Slater talks about his perfect 10’s at Teahupoo in ‘05 as a turning point for him as he was making his way back to the top. Will it be the same for Parko? Who knows, but yesterdays performance at Backdoor by Joel Parkinson was a site to behold, and one that will remain in the record books for years to come.

Tags: Dusty Payne, Joel Parkinson, pipeline

Posted by Shaun on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 in Surfing.

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