About Delta Motor Sport

Ian Rowley started racing in 1972 at Brands Hatch Racing School. His first race car was a Triumph GT6 purchased as a write off. After totally rebuilding the car into a race spec for Mod Sports only he raced the car 6 times in 1976, finished 3rd in class at Brands Hatch. He then sold the Triumph and bought his first single seater, a Sparton F4 built by Bob Sparshott, Graham Hills Lotus mechanic.

In 1977 he drove the Sparton Imp powered single seater in 750 Motor Club F4 having a challenging season with little success.

In 1978 after improving the chassis and bodywork and rebuilding the engine with twin 40 Webber's he finished 6th in the 1979 championship with a couple of podium finishes at Silverstone and Castle Combe.

In 1980 he switched to a more powerful Ford 1300cc in a new chassis called a Cirrus built by two of Ian's friends, Bill Morgan and his son Alan.

The season got off to a very promising start when in the 1st race at Caste Combe he led the race for 9 out of the 10 laps only to run out of fuel on the last lap. Ian still managed to coast over the line in 3rd place and get fastest lap.

Next race at Silverstone Ian finished 3rd. He was leading the Championship but ran out of money and the car had to be sold.

After a two year break Ian returned to racing in 1984 and bought his first Delta. This car was rebuilt by the factory and Ian had several podium finishes and a class win at Mallory Park. Ian's first outright win was in 1989.

During the 80's Ian started setting up and repairing Deltas for customers getting an excellent rputation for preparing winning cars. As the factory had stopped building the cars in 1983 he saw an opportunity and purchased the jigs and body moulds and so Delta Motor Sport was born in 1989.

In 1990 we ran our first customer, Ron Manger, and have been running and preparing race cars in the UK and Europe ever since.

Autosport ran several articles on us in 1993.