“I’m going back to being a freesurfer,” he says. “It’s what I was meant to do.”

Finally. After four and a half years of tough losses and sporadic highlights, the once-touted “best freesurfer in the world” will soon be back out there to reclaim his crown. At the end of 2008, no matter how he finishes on the ASP World Tour, Bruce Irons is going back to what he was born to do: not compete, but create. Now at 28, Irons admits his stint on tour was not what he expected it to be. No matter how dreamy the Dream Tour is, it’s still a bunch of contests, which just never quite fit Bruce’s style of surfing. Sure, he had some high notes. His second-place finish to brother Andy at the 2004 Quik Pro in Hossegor was a storybook contest in storybook conditions, and we figured that was only the beginning of Irons-clad finals. But it was never to be. After finishing 9th in 2005, Bruce has steadily dropped off, disappearing – as he calls it – “in the back of the cattle truck.” So, after thinking about it for the past few months, he’s decided to break out of the cattle truck and roam free. He wants to finish his commitments on this year’s tour and take one more shot at winning a contest, but after that, Bruce 2.0 will be unchained and on the loose. Look out.

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(Source: Surfing Magazine)