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Otto Eugene Ryssman was born on September 10, 1929. His father, Bert Ryssman, came from around the Hamburg, Germany area and emigrated to the United States as a small child. Bert was raised in New York, but went west to homestead property in Utah. Bert met and married Nora O’Leary in Utah. Their oldest son was Bert O’Leary Ryssman, followed by Maxine, Dorothy, Otto, Ramona, Iris, Naomi and Arthur. Otto was born in Milford, Utah, but when he was a year old the family moved to Santa Ana, California, around Harbor Blvd and Heil Street. The family owned a farm and Otto remembers that they planted potatoes, corn, boysenberries, peppers and other vegetables. Bert bought his boysenberry plants from a Mr Boysen who was the originator of this new variety at the same time Walter Knott bought his boysenberry plants. The family knew Walter and Cordelia Knott, who founded the famous Knotts Berry Farm and Chicken House in Buena Park, California. As Otto grew up he worked in the fields, weeding, driving tractors and picking fruits and vegetables. He remembers driving a team of horses and a plow to cultivate the ground. Otto attended Bolsa Elementary school on Brookhurst and First Street. He knew Calvin Rice, a famous drag racer and the winner of the first NHRA Nationals drag race in 1955. Ryssman was close to Gene Rice, Calvin’s brother, who was his own age. Orange County was experiencing a lot of growth and Otto transferred to Lincoln School in Garden Grove and then to Washington School. After graduating from elementary school, Otto attended Garden Grove High School where his favorite classes were math, history, metal, wood and automotive shops. He was in the band and ran the mile event in track. After school he worked for Freddy Pimental’s vegetable stand on First and Harbor, in Santa Ana, which was just across the street from CJ Hart’s gas station.
Graduating in 1947, Otto went to work for H.H. Bridgeford, a meat packing plant and was put in charge of the meat curing cellar, sausage kitchens and smoking rooms. He remained at Bridgeford until 1955. Otto remembers going to Rosamond Dry Lakes in the summer of 1947 with Edward ‘Tiny’ Conkle. Tiny worked for CJ Hart’s Beacon Gas Station and Garage. CJ and his wife Peggy were committed to the vision of having a safe and sanctioned racetrack where young men could bring their cars to race. With help from Frank Stillwell, Creighton Hunter and other volunteers, CJ and Peggy Hart would open the first professional drag strip in the world in 1950 and change the world of straight-line racing forever. Stillwell was the Indian Motorcycle dealer in Anaheim and was the partner who was able to get the insurance for the drag strip. Stillwell also promoted races and hill climbing events for motorcycles. Conkle owned a ’34 Ford V-8 coupe that Otto raced at the dry lakes. They raced in a little known group called Arnon Timing Association, run by Guy Hyde. Conkle and Ryssman also were involved in street racing along Harbor Blvd between Bolsa Avenue and McFadden Street. Another favorite street racing venue was along Westminster Blvd. Street racers would gather around 10 pm and set up their course, then race each other until the police showed up. Hart and Ryssman would meet a few years later and have a great impact on getting the illegal street racers to change their habits and race at drag strips rather than on public roads. Hart would become the father figure that young men would follow and Ryssman the older brother that kids wished to emulate.
Otto joined the Gascateer car club of Long Beach in 1948, which raced at the dry lakes under the Russetta Timing Association (RTA). Russetta was the chief rival of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). There were a lot of timing associations at that time and young men raced for several organizations at a time. The SCTA favored roadsters and so the Russetta Timing Association was formed to allow coupes and other kinds of cars to race, including roadsters. Lou Baney was the leader in the RTA and Jack Peters ran the Western Timing Association (WTA) before World War II. Bell Timing Association (BTA) and Muroc Timing Association (MTA) were two other groups who operated off and on. One of Ryssman’s friends in the Gascateers was Clark Cagle. Cagle was a licensed chiropractor but did not practice that profession. Cagle owned Lakewood Muffler and provided engines for other racers. Another person who Otto admired was Chuck Potvin, who took the time to help Ryssman. Potvin was a leader in the largest timing association, the SCTA and a skilled maker of speed racing parts. Chuck Potvin was also an early cam grinder and an amateur chemist. He and Otto would take the nitroglycerine out of dynamite and combine it with alcohol to create an enhanced fuel. Potvin encouraged Otto to join the Lancers car club, which was a member of the SCTA and included such well-known land speed racers as Doug Hartelt, Dick Kraft, Paul Stratton, Bill Jenks and Potvin. The Lancers had originally formed in Hollywood but later moved their meetings to Hawaiian Gardens. In 1949 he went to Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Western Utah, to drive Doug Hartelt’s roadster. This was the very first Speed Week event held by the SCTA and it has been a success since the first meet. This was the first time that SCTA allowed coupes to race at their events. Bill Phy and Otto were the first coupes to run. Otto was one of the charter members of the Bonneville 200 Miles Per Hour Club. To join, a landspeed racer must go over 200 mph and set a record in his class. The first five members were Willie Young, George Hill, Otto Ryssman, Art Chrisman and Johnny Rogers. Ryssman married Carol Rae Segner in February 1950 and they had two daughters and a son; Patty Lynn, Otto Eugene Jr and Cindi Rae Ryssman.
On July 2, 1950, Ryssman raced at the new Santa Ana, California dragstrip opened by CJ Hart. Others had tried short straight-line racing before. In 1949, a group had organized a drag race over a short distance at Goleta, California. Hart created his own rules and regulations; many copied from the dry lakes and some from his experience as a mechanic and racer. The Santa Ana Drags at the Airport would be the first professional drag strip in the nation. Hart charged 99 cents admission and said that if he had to raise it to an even dollar then the government would want him to pay taxes. The drag strip was located on a side road adjacent to an old military runway. The Santa Ana Drags were an instant success and Ryssman would be one of the star racers. His name would emblazon the news headlines in the sports section as each week he would win trophies or set new records. He was the pre-eminent name in a sport that Hart had unknowingly created. Otto drove a ’31 Model A Ford coupe with a Mercury Flathead engine. Soon there were drag strips being created all over the Southland and across the country. They sprung up as if by magic. He raced at Saugus, Bakersfield, Paradise Mesa and other tracks, but his favorite was Santa Ana and he was the master there. He held most of the records in his class at nearly every drag strip that he raced at. Tiny Conkle was his crew and his wife watched from the stands. He tried using a Crosley body on his car but the results weren’t satisfactory. What made him very successful was when he lengthened the frame and removed the body to create the first real dragster design. He set and broke records all through the first half of the 1950’s.
In 1955 he left his job as a meat packer and went to work driving trucks for Eggleston Trucking Company, where he stayed until 1960. In that year he went to work for Welch’s Ready Mix Cement Company hauling cement to and from Victorville. An accident in 1954 at Bonneville put Ryssman in the hospital for a week when his streamliner crashed. A tragic event happened to him on July 26, 1955 when a clutch and pressure plate exploded in his car (with Doug Hartelt’s engine) as Otto was making a run at Santa Ana. A fragment of metal hit the asphalt and bounced up to impact a spectator from out of state who was in the stands watching his first drag race. The man died and the family sued the Hart’s, Hartelt and Ryssman for $150,000, a veritable fortune in those days. Though the ticket stub warned that injuries can occur in drag racing and that the racetrack is not responsible, the suit dragged on through the courts. The costs were both emotional and financial. Otto had been injured as well and it took eight stitches to close the wound. The lawyer for the drag strip told the two men, “kid, you are on your own.” The family claimed Hartelt and Ryssman were guilty of negligent homicide and the cost of defending the suit was high. The suit eventually died and was forgotten, but had the claimants won their case, all of drag racing would have had to face the threat of more lawsuits. At the time of the accident, Ryssman was building a new dragster. He gave the car to Calvin Rice and Melvin Dodd and they changed the tube frame to a square metal frame and won the first NHRA Nationals Championship in 1955. The accident at Bonneville and the death of the spectator at the Santa Ana drag strip ended Otto’s career. It was time to leave drag and landspeed racing and raise his family. Otto has ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. In 1994, he and his wife Carol moved to Arizona. He thought for a moment and recalled the days when the sport first started. “We raced the fastest cars against the motorcycles and they were very hard to beat,” said Ryssman. “Chet Herbert’s The Beast and CB Clausen and Hood’s The Brute were two very fast bikes,” he added.
Gone Racin' is at [email protected].
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