by Jerry Bonkowski
If there was an award for the most inspiring story in drag racing, Matt Stutzman would win it feet down.
Wait, shouldn’t that be “hands down”?
In most cases, probably yes. But Stutzman doesn’t have hands or arms – he was born without them. However, that hasn’t stopped the Iowa resident from attaining some outstanding achievements in life.
At 42, Stutzman has not let his disability stop him or define him. He has accomplished things that individuals with hands can only dream about.
For example, the married father of three is both a gold and silver medalist in the Paralympics in a sport known for athletes who use their hands: archery.
Stutzman uses his feet to compete, becoming one of the most successful contestants in para archery competition. In fact, just two years after taking up a bow for the first time, he won a silver medal in the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. He then won a gold medal in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.
If there’s something that requires the use of hands, Stutzman finds a way around his limitation with his feet.
That includes driving. Stutzman has been a drag racer for the last 13 years and recently earned his NHRA license to move up in class to Top Sportsman. His 1969 Chevrolet Camaro has a blown Hemi engine under the hood, runs on alcohol and he has high hopes to further expand his drag racing career.
Stutzman does not let his disability hamper him. He has a seriousness and a drive to be the best he can be. He knows his disability may be considered a limitation, but he doesn’t look at it that way. He actually believes not having hands has made him a better drag racer because he has to be innovative in how he operates the car.
He uses his right foot to start the car, steer it, hits buttons on the steering wheel that include putting the car in reverse, apply the brakes and even releasing the parachute to slow his fast-moving Chevy down.
“Once I get the car fired and move in the forward motion, I’ll use my right foot to shift and to drive,” Stutzman said when he guested this week on CompetitionPlus.com’s Power Hour. “Once I do this and then after the burnout, I back up and I stage the car.
“My right foot never leaves the steering wheel again and the car shifts on its own. My left foot then goes between the brake and the gas. If for some reason the parachutes do not deploy, I have the parachute lever down by my left foot, down by the brake which I can activate, deploying them in an emergency situation.
“But for the most part, if you could just pretend your right hand is what you drive with and what you can do with that right hand, in my brain since I never had arms, I was able to train myself to make my right foot basically be a right hand. So that’s what I see in my mind when I’m driving this car.”
With a very positive and effervescent personality, Stutzman loves to crack jokes and make quips about his disability, not in a negative way, but in a positive manner. For example, on Power Hour, he quipped about his car, “Let’s just be honest here, it’s a handful,” Stutzman said with a hearty laugh.
That kind of positive attitude has been the centerpiece of his life. Adopted at 13 months, as he grew up his parents made sure that he didn’t use his handicap as a crutch, but rather to find a way to succeed despite his disability.
“I was born this way,” Stutzman acknowledges. “One of the things that (his parents) began teaching me at a young age was that they weren’t going to cater to me.
“So if I had to drive the tractor or the truck to go feed the cows, they’d toss me the keys to the truck and I’d go learn how to drive this thing.
“It wasn’t like they were trying to be rough on me or tough. They just understood that if they didn’t teach me how to do that stuff when I was younger or have me learn to adapt to the world, then when I got older I might be the guy on the couch watching you guys interview another armless guy living his dreams – and I was not going to let that happen.”
Stutzman learned how to drive at 8 years old, using his feet to steer and also operate the gas and brake pedals. He’s been a drag racing fan for as long as he can remember and began racing in his late 20s, first in a diesel truck and then moved up through the sportsman ranks. It took him over a year to meet all of NHRA’s safety stipulations to compete in the Top Sportsman ranks.
“We had to jump through quite a bit of hoops just to
make (NHRA) understand that I can handle this car,” he said. “We decided that we were going to take it to this level two years ago and here we are.”
Stutzman has a lot of drag racing dreams, including reaching 200 mph, winning a race and to claim a Wally trophy, and his biggest dream of all: to drive a Top Fuel dragster.
“My goal is 200 miles per hour in the quarter(mile), which doesn’t sound like a lot but that’s a pretty special club,” he said. “We are close. We did some testing this weekend and we’re hoping within the next event or two we can lay down some numbers that will definitely be like a low six in the quarter which maybe will be 220ish miles per hour. That’s ultimately my goal.
“I’m lucky to have people who believe in my dream. PennGrade (motor oil) has come on strong with this one to really help me push this and help me achieve my dream.”
Admittedly, driving a race car with one’s feet is challenging, but it also can produce moments of levity. One of Stutzman’s favorite stories is accidentally deploying his parachutes.
“I had moved the parachute buttons around on my steering wheel,” he said. “There was a time like in the span of like three laps in two races, I would stage the car and you’d hear the car go roar, and then the ‘chutes would just go ‘boop’ and I wouldn’t know they’re out.
“I’m just flying down through there with two parachutes (out) and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Man, this thing is slow. Why isn’t it going faster?’ And then I’d get to the (top end) and my team’s laughing at me.
“All you can do is just laugh at those moments because, I mean, you can still run low sevens with both ‘chutes out if you have the right combo, apparently.”
While he earned his NHRA Top Sportsman license just over a month ago, Stutzman hopes to one day earn his Top Fuel license.
“200 miles an hour, to be honest, isn’t fast enough for me,” he quipped. “Even now with the numbers that we’re running with this car and we know what it will do, it doesn’t feel fast. I don’t know if it’s just an adrenaline thing or whatever, but if I ever got a chance where I could sit down with some engineers who could help me figure it out to make the chassis
where I could drive (a Top Fueler), I would love that opportunity.
“I want to say I’m the fastest guy in the world without arms. It would be cool to race some of my racing idols, like to be able to even just stage next to them – and maybe someday it could happen.”
Stutzman is currently starring in a 10-episode online series about his racing life at PennGrade1 Performance Racing’s Facebook page, on YouTube and can get more information on him at ArmlessMatt.com.
“You’re going to see 10 episodes throughout the summer of me trying to get to 200 (mph), and then when I get to 200, going after that Wally and going after what’s next,” Stutzman said.
Some of the series highlights include Matt working on his race car and driving an 88-foot RV and towing his race trailer.
“If you could go and watch and support me on this journey, that would be pretty cool,” Stutzman said.
But Stutzman doesn’t just want attention, he wants to serve as an inspiration.
“People on a daily basis come up to me and talk to me about what they watched and how it inspired them and motivated them, and I really quickly understood that that’s maybe what my purpose is in life,” he said. “I’m lucky enough to have people that support my dreams and what my goals are, but the reality is that they’re really helping me use this platform to inspire and motivate others because life is what you make it, and that’s how I’ve always thought about it.
“So you either sit at home on the couch and cry and complain you have no arms or you can go do what you would think would be your life. You go live it right and I think that’s my purpose now – along with going 200 mph (he adds with a laugh).”
