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DUSTIN RAY: RIP

1,321 Comments | POSTED 09.09.12 in News

UPDATE: Memorial @ Morro Rock. Sept 29th 2012. This afternoon Mike Jones and friends raised over $18,000 for Dustin’s family with a silent auction, tee shirt sales and a raffle. Very heavy scene – good to see all of DRay’s old crew -Danny M, Kevin, nate, tyson, gabe, the Wilfongs, balin, abe, c. jackson and too many more to list. Virs n Carlson made the trip up as well. Guy Guy n Huey were stuck in middle America working but send their thoughts. The kids look to be in good hands with Dustin’s mother. Dustin’s pops was there too – broke out his 1981 Jeff Widener thruster for the paddle out (first time surfing in 20 years).

September 9 2012. One of the original …Lost riders and longtime friend Dustin Ray passed away today. To say he will be missed is a big understatement. Dustin was also a single father of three. The mother of his children was killed in a car accident many years ago and now the responsibility has fallen on Dustin’s mother, who is in no financial situation to take care of the kids by herself. CLICK HERE for the official Fundraiser page for Dustin Ray and his family.

From Surfline.com – “The Summer of ’93 I took a trip to Cabo San Lucas with a few buddies,” recalls boardbuilding icon Matt Biolos. “I had been shaping Mayhems for about six years already, and the …Lost Clothing side of things was in its most infantile stages. To be honest, I had never even been to Cabo before. We landed and drove straight out the dirt road to Shipwrecks. It was pumping. I saw a guy repeatedly taking off on solid, double-overhead rights and proceed to tear them to pieces: crazy Hail Mary floaters, powerful lip bashes and animalistic hacks down the point. We were pretty pumped and sprinted into the lineup. Once in the water, this same guy was running up and down the lineup like a man possessed. On every wave he was going for broke — all the while sporting a smile as wide as his arms were spread as he floated the bouncy, thick lips. To this day, I have never seen better waves surfed with more reckless abandon in Cabo.”

“On the beach afterwards,” adds Biolos, “I walked up to a makeshift camp on the beach where a rag tag crew of Central Cal surfers had been sleeping, in the dirt, for weeks — blazing-hot desert camp on the edge of the world, dust in every crevice with only the warm brine to bathe in — and among them was the animal described above. His name was Dustin Ray. A true and unique character if there ever was one, I had a man-crush immediately. We were in Cabo for a week or so — surf, party, surf, go home — and a couple weeks later Dustin and his crew finally drove home. On the way back up, Dustin stopped in San Clemente to say hi. I will go out on a limb and say he was the first surfer we ever gave a box of clothes to. In exchange, he gave me a tape of all his best video clips. A couple months after that, we did our first ASR tradeshow and edited a small promo reel to play in the booth. 50% of this reel was Dustin’s home footage that he gave me, and for one shining moment during the launch of …Lost, Dustin was our main team guy!”

“The first video we ever made, Momentum 3: The Wrath of Chicken featured a lot of these clips,” finishes Biolos. “From that point on, D-Ray was an on-again-off-again part of the family, with some classic good times and some terrible lows. But those early days are what stand out most to me. And that’s how I choose to remember him.”

“Kelly Slater was arguing w/Biolos at our first tradeshow booth about using him in the “none of these guys are on (really small type) Team Lost (really big type)” Beach Happy ad. Dejected, KS was staring at the TV taking solace in how bad our team video clips were. Then Dustin Ray’s surfing came on. Kelly said, “Who’s that? That guy rips. Seriously.” I don’t ever think I told Dustin that.

“On our ..Lost surf jam tour in 2004 we had driven all night from Florida to get to Folly Beach, South Carolina. We arrived while it was still dark to 100 groms waiting for our contest to start. The littlest one walked up to us as the sun came up and said “Is Dustin Ray here?” I was still half asleep as I dumbfoundedly said “yes, why?” He says, “good. Dustin says in your video that if we can beat him that we can be on the team. So we’re all here to beat Dustin.”

“He lived in San Clemente and worked side by side with us in the clothing warehouse when the surf wasn’t good. He pretty much made the …Lost warehouse the happiest place in the world. I can’t think of too many pro surfers who would work hard labor in their sponsor’s warehouse with a perma-smile.

“He was the epitome of the happy-go-lucky surfer. Not too many Dustins out there any more.” – Mike Reola


Dustin and the …Lost crew for the 2004 East Coast Surf Jam series.