Mamas, don’t let your boys grow up to be adrenaline junkies.
This is a story about a stepfather and a stepson willing to try risky things, like drive a speedboat at 126 miles an hour and fly in a helicopter sideways to keep up with vehicles racing on the ground below.
This is the story of Brock Bradfield, 17. Seemingly mild-mannered. But also an action figure who likes to surf and snowboard. He didn’t just sit around until the “Brien era” – when his future stepfather Brien Metcalf entered his mother Kelli’s life and let Brock try his “toys.”
Bradfield became activated at that point. “The first time I ever met [Brien], we were at Crown Point,” says Bradfield, a La Jolla High School junior who wants to be a firefighter after graduation. “Brien’s boat is a Cole TR6,” he says. “It’s red, purple, blue, I think. Kind of Laker colors. I’m a Lakers fan, so I liked it.” Bradfield was 14 at the time.
“After one summer, he asked me if I wanted to ride in it,” he says. “It was at the (Colorado) River. We were in Parker. It was crazy. It was the fastest run he’s ever made in the boat.”
This is the boat he drove at 126 miles an hour.
As Bradfield says, “I’ve done some things that other teenagers haven’t done.” (Advisory, mamas: Don’t let your children read the rest of this story if you don’t want them to do risky things.) Then there’s the Hallet boat his stepfather bought. After Brien drove it, he let Bradfield have the controls. “He wanted to get another boat,” says Bradfield. “I went to the river when he bought it. He let me drive it. He kept telling me to go faster (flipping his hand to indicate more, more speed). I was scared.”
“It’s really confusing,” he says about driving the boat. “There’s a plate for the gas (under the right foot). Then there’s a plate (to the left) that determines how flat the boat will ride. Brien set that to the bottom so that the boat would stay level. The river was choppy. We took air at one point.” Eventually, “I hit a point where I didn’t want to go any faster,” he says. “I slowed down.” Where was mom all this time? “She wouldn’t let me ride in the (Cole) boat the first year,” he says. “She was super-scared about the boat. She didn’t want to go on it.” Says Bradfield of his mother, “She’s always the one that says let’s hold back.” The helicopter ride with a professional pilot, Dave Martz, was an adrenaline rush. Bradfield was 15 or 16. “That was a crazy experience,” he says in wonderment and with a touch of pride. “I don’t know if I could explain it. That was at the river, too. [Brien’s] friend, Dave, was there. I knew him for a long time before. [Brien] said, ‘This is my friend.’” This was during the Parker 400 off-road race. Dave hired out to a film company that wanted to record the race from the air. Bradfield’s weight plays into his favor. He’s not big, at 140 pounds. “I was in a seat here, and the door was right there (pointing to his right). They have the door of the helicopter off for filming, so that adds an element (of excitement). I was super- pumped up. “When you take off, it’s a weird sensation. We followed some cars. We also went sideways, next to the cars in the race. They weren’t filming at the time, but it’s what they do when they’re filming.” Martz’s helicopter skirted sideways, a mere 50 feet off the ground, following the movement of the off-road vehicles. Bradfield shows by his intonation and his expression that it was a hyper-adrenaline experience. He says again, “I’ve done some things the average teenager hasn’t done.” Mind you, the stepson and the stepdad have a relationship. It’s not like Metcalf suddenly began subjecting this young man to things without getting to know him. “I surf with Brien,” says Bradfield. “We usually cook dinner. That’s obviously something he enjoys. I’ve helped him clean his boats, desert quads, go karts.” The younger Bradfield also speaks highly of his biological father, Larry. “My dad is a super-nice guy,” he says, “He’s a really cool dude, and he was the one that got me into surfing and skating mostly out of anyone growing up. So he’s pretty much why I like to do a lot of sports and crazy stuff.” Martz wanted to go out again later the same day of Brock’s first ride. “We went over to Lake Havasu (from the airport in Parker),” Bradfield relates. “We went out over the mountains. We saw wild donkeys. Mountain goats. It was 109 degrees (in August). It was a really cool landscape.” Bradfield says they traveled by some power lines. “(Martz) went by them,” he says; “then, where the mountain goes down, he dropped sharply. Oh, crap. I thought I was going to die. When you take off (in a helicopter), it’s a weird sensation,” he says. It goes against what you would expect. A third area of excitement for Bradfield, though not nearly the adrenaline rush, has been snowmobiling. Metcalf owns a ski resort. “He says, ‘I have these snowmobiles,’” Brock remembers. “‘Do you want to drive one?’” After gaining experience on the vehicle, Bradfield was allowed to take it out alone. Jack is Brien’s nephew (similar age to Bradfield). “I would take Jack up to the top of the slope. He would go down on a snowboard. I followed on the snowmobile.”