Hurled out of his car, the Lea-Francis driver thought he’d got away with the accident, only to see the supercharged machine careering back towards him. Wagging its tail like a dog loyally rushing back to its master, the ‘Leaf’ left a tyre tread impression on his helmet just like a muddy paw print. It remains as a testament not only to how lucky Tom Delaney was to survive virtually unscathed, but also to a remarkable partnership that now spans three-quarters of a century.

Incredibly, that is how long this nonagenarian has been racing his Hyper model, and at 94 Tom has no intention of giving up yet. An educated guess suggests that he has some 10 years on his nearest rival for the title of the oldest driver still racing in Great Britain, Australia or America, although he prefers to play this down. We have met at his Kensington home in London, a capacious flat that’s as immaculately turned out as Tom himself.

His father Luke’s interest in cars began before the turn of the last century, when the infant automobile was barely out of its pram. Journalism had taken him to the Continent, and France in particular, where he entered the motor trade. ‘The industry there was striding ahead,’ says Tom, ‘but in England manufacturers had nowhere to test, nowhere to race and silly speed limits. My father did his first race before 1900 on the Continent. He set up on his own and Bugatti asked him if he would sell some cars in England.’ Which is how Delaney senior became the first person to race the French marque in England. He also competed in the 1903 Paris-Madrid race, which was famously curtailed at Bordeaux after Marcel Renault’s death was deemed a fatality too far.

Tom was 15 or 16 when his father, whose London showroom then sold mainly Talbots, started taking him to Brooklands. There he would be introduced to leading drivers such as Donald Campbell, JG Parry Thomas, Sammy Davies and Captain George Eyston, little knowing that he would soon be among them. Tom would also regularly accompany the Lea-Francis drivers during testing at the Surrey track, and travelled with them to Ireland, where he was in charge of spares in the pits.

‘It was all very exciting,’ he recalls, ‘and I never thought I would be driving myself. But my father wanted one of his sons to follow in his footsteps and take up racing.’ Tom had taught himself to drive in his early teens and in 1930 his father bought him the Lea-Francis Hyper in which Kaye Don had won the 1928 Tourist Trophy race at Ards in Northern Ireland – the same year Tom left school. Imagine being given the Aston Martin DBR9 that won this year’s TT at just 19 years of age! Bought direct from the manufacturer, the 11/2-litre Hyper had 105bhp at the wheels, an impressive figure for the late-1920s. It was later fitted with a larger supercharger, in which form Tom would be lapping Brooklands’ Outer Circuit at over 100mph in races such as the Double Twelve.

Back in the 1920s and ’30s, racing licences as we know them today did not exist. ‘I was entered for my first race at Brooklands and had to do a few laps under observation,’ explains Tom, who is today a vice-president of the Brooklands Society, ‘and I think that was that. They just wanted to see if I could drive around the circuit safely. The first time I raced at Brooklands was on the Outer Circuit. I’d been round as a passenger with friends, so there was nothing strange.

‘The important thing was to get on the right position on the banking – too high and the car is trying to get down, and too low and it’s trying to go up. I won a few races and invariably had a place, but mostly seconds and thirds. And when they got a new handicapper you always knew you had no chance of winning the second race because they put you way back.

‘I did quite well with it,’ says Tom of the ‘Leaf’, adding: ‘My father sent an entry in for the 1931 Grand Prix in Ireland and I got pole position and led for 200 miles or so; they were long races in those days – the Tourist Trophy was 400 miles on open roads. The engine was losing power a bit and I knew I was going to have to come into the pits and lose my lead. Grit and muck had got into the engine. After that, the car was going very well, with less fuel on board; there was no hope to get up the front so I decided to go for the lap record. Then it poured with rain, so I had to give up the thought of the lap record. I finished well down: a pity, because the car was really going well. And the next day I drove it all the way to London!
‘Then the car was used regularly at Brooklands; there was nowhere else to race apart from the odd hillclimb and I was too busy to go on the Continent.’

Apart from racing, Tom also became a keen pilot. ‘They started a flying club at Brooklands in the early 1930s,’ he recalls, ‘and a friend of mine said “let’s join, it may be good fun”. I joined in 1935. That was great – have a day’s racing on the circuit and on the long evenings fly over Sussex, and at weekends go to Deauville. They had de Havilland Gypsy Moths and then Tiger Moths principally. I enjoyed mostly flying the Gypsy Moths.’

After studying at Northampton Engineering College, Tom had gone straight into the family business. ‘My father was anxious for me to come into the business to help him,’ he continues. ‘Aircraft heaters of one sort or another was the main business, and sometimes radiators for the motor industry.’ Indeed, Delaney-Galley heaters were fitted to a variety of cars until the 1960s.

‘My father began to leave more and more to me and it was quite a responsibility. During the war I was running the business. I volunteered for the RAF but the Ministry of Aircraft Production said the business was essential and my place was running it. We had to switch over to aircraft production – radiators, cabin heaters – and towards the end, when jet engines were coming in, we joined up with an American firm producing asbestos blankets that kept the heat off the airframe.’

With the advent of WW2, Tom had decided to sell the Leaf: ‘I couldn’t race in the war and didn’t know where to keep it.’ In the late 1950s – by which time he had bought another Hyper with non-original engine – he decided to try and locate it. He got a lucky break; by chance a friend said he thought the car was in Aden, and Tom then tracked the owner down. ‘But he loved the car and wouldn’t part with it. Then a few months later he sent a letter saying he couldn’t sleep at night and he must let me have it back!’

Some ten years earlier, incidentally, Tom’s friendship with Martin Baker, the inventor of the ejector seat, had led to him being the guinea-pig on an early development rig for the new device: ‘He knew how powerful the explosion should be but he’d been testing with sacks of sand, which is why he said would I go up. I was getting 3g, which he said was a bit much. I’d hear the bang of the cartridge and I was up there, over 70 feet, with no knowledge of doing so! I enjoyed it, oh yes.’ It did, however, displace two vertebrae and while being treated Tom had to use a specially made seat in the Hyper.

Numerous races, maybe some 750, have been tackled by Tom and his Lea Francis, but which is the most memorable? ‘Well, of course, the Irish Grand Prix would have been!’ he replies. ‘At Brooklands I had some terrific scraps. I remember with Raymond Mays it was fantastic, it was 1932 on the Mountain Circuit, and he was in a supercharged Riley, the White Riley. He was a hot favourite and I thought “I’m not going to let him win!” Unfortunately it poured with rain and there was no racing until it cleared a bit. The race started and on about the third lap I spun the car and a marshal wouldn’t let me back on the circuit until the other cars had gone by, including Raymond Mays.

‘So I really had to go like hell and was passing one after the other, and was having a ding-dong with Raymond Mays. I had a nice letter from Kaye Don who said that coming round the corners we were both alongside, and that coming out my getaway was quicker but Raymond Mays had a higher gear and then would pass me again. It was a terrific race – I had my brother tap me on the shoulder when Raymond Mays was coming up, but I won the race. That was memorable.

‘My younger brother Eric loved to come as mechanic – in the early days you had to have a mechanic. The cars were all two-seaters, and the mechanic would be pumping away to get the fuel through and have all the instruments to keep an eye on.’

‘There was also Donington, the first year they had motor racing in 1932. In the race was Dick Seaman, GG Tressillian and ER Hall. I remember it blowing well and the leaves came off the trees. Hall had pole position but Hall and Seaman stood still with their wheels spinning on the leaves; Hall got away, then I got away, the car was going well, and I passed Seaman and Tressillian. I mention these two because they had very fast Bugattis. I was catching up Hall slowly and came over the line second, followed by Tressillian and then Seaman. It was very exciting, getting past Dick Seaman again,’ he adds with modest pride, ‘because he was the favourite for the race.

‘Another I remember was a sprint race – I think the bridge over the river was sagging so we were just doing sprints. The car seemed to be going well and I put a low ratio in for these short races. I won so easily that the timekeepers weren’t ready so I never got the speed I was doing. I remember because Ernest Eldridge said he’d like a ride in the car. He thought the acceleration was fantastic and on race day George Eyston came up and said “Ernest has said the car was going really well”. I said “yes, it is” and he rushed off to the bookmakers! I think The Motor said I’d romped home a winner. It’s still very quick off the mark, my car.’

As well as currently racing at Silverstone, Donington Park and Rockingham, Tom and his Leaf take in sprints at Colherne, Goodwood and the Brighton Speed Trials. While we talk Tom gets a call from son Geoffrey, who, like daughter Lucy, also races a Lea-Francis Hyper (mother Yvonne, who loved to watch her husband race, died eight years ago), confirming a race in April at a VSCC Silverstone meeting. Is he conscious of being the oldest driver still racing? ‘I don’t think about it,’ says Tom. ‘I just think about the races and I don’t want to be bragging about it; maybe there’s someone in South America who’s older. I’m just lucky to be able to pass the medical.’

Surprisingly, Tom has never raced any other car. Good fortune seems to have been the duo’s companion throughout their partnership, not least at last year’s crash at Silverstone: ‘It was a very hot day and grease was coming out of the track, I couldn’t see it and got on the greasy bit. The car went onto the grass backwards, flipped in the air at 45 degrees, perhaps doing 60mph, and threw me out. I looked up and the car was coming back at me, the nearside wheel heading for my face – I must have been knocked out and next I was in the medical centre.’ His only injury being the skin rolled back on his left hand, Tom competed at a Goodwood sprint a few weeks later, where he duly won outright! ‘So I started the season with a win at Silverstone and finished the season with a win at Goodwood!

‘I enjoy all the races so it’s difficult to say which I enjoy the most. You see, I race just for the fun of it; I don’t mind if I don’t win, I just enjoy it. In those days it was a sport, now it’s so commercial; so thank goodness for the VSCC. I’m lucky my heart works very well and it amazes the doctor when he puts me through the tests. If for any reason I had to give up, I would, but so far so good!’

So good, in fact, that shortly before Octane closed for press, this charming man and his faithful Lea-Francis – who together beat the likes of Dick Seaman and Raymond Mays seven decades ago – had just recorded their latest victory, winning at the VSCC’s Silverstone meeting. Long may they continue.