Otto Schulz Uninjured In Terrifying Radial Outlaws Pro 275 Crash

One of DRAGZINE’s all-time most popular feature cars is, sadly, no longer. Fortunately, it’s pilot, Illinois native Otto Schulz, walked away with little more than minor bumps and bruises from one of the more violent crashes in recent memory.

Schulz, behind the wheel of his beautiful 1957 Chevrolet built by David Reese of Reese Brothers Race Cars, was competing in Pro 275 at the FuelTech Radial Outlaws Racing Series event at the Alabama International Dragway over the weekend. Schulz and his roots-blown beauty had clocked a career-best run of 3.89 seconds during qualifying, providing Otto and his team confidence going into eliminations, despite a impending matchup with the strong-running Mustang of Marcus Birt in round one.

Sadly, that race was the ’57’s last, as at the close of a 3.95-second losing run, the throttle hung open, sending Schulz on a high-speed trip through the shutdown area. Before the car could run off the end of the strip into a densely forested area, though, the engine erupted in a fireball, and the resulting hard braking sent the car off the racing surface and into a series of violent barrel rolls. The incident destroyed the classic masterpiece, but Reese’s expert welds held tough and kept Otto from suffering serious injury. After exiting the car, Schulz was taken to an area hospital for evaluation and was released hours later with a clean bill of health.

“The throttle was stuck wide open … when I stepped on the throttle, it got stuck behind the throttle stop bolt,” Schulz recounts of the incident. “I couldn’t see at all once it started smoking, and then the engine let go. I knew I was ahead of Marcus because he was shutting down at the 1/8-mile and I was still wide open, so I turned on purpose because it was still flying and I didn’t want to run into the trees.”