Tom Delgado

"Some lights are meant to burn brightly, then simply flicker away. Mine is one of those lights, and I'm perfectly alright with that."

- Tom Delgado

Tom Delgado (1974-2021) was an American race car driver. Delgado is one of only a handful of drivers to have won in both the TM Master Cup Series & the FARC Lowe Dollar Series. More recently, despite flirting with retirement and multiple health scares, he won the 2014 American Stock Car Championship title and the 2017 Dash Cup Super Stocks championship. His nickname around the garage is The American Devil. He is the former owner of Tom Delgado Racing, which suspended operations in 2018. As of the end of the 2018 racing season, Delgado is the sport's only 4-division race winner (TMMC, FARC, Dash Cup, ASCC).

Before Racing
Before entering motorsport, Delgado was a professional boxer. He amassed a record of 48-18-2 with 46 knockouts. He was known for being a ruthless man inside the ring, often continuing to wail on his opponents even after the referee stepped in to stop a fight. He retired from the ring in 2005 after a failed attempt to become the heavyweight champion of the world.

2012 - The Year From Hell
Delgado missed the first three races of the 2012 TM Master Cup season after suffering a heart attack in January. After a cavalcade of mixed results, Delgado retired after failing to qualify for the Round of Indianapolis. He then made an appearance at the Zing Energy 300, and finished 3rd. Delgado also competed in the Rockford 200 B-main but failed to win. There were rumors that he would do Star Team Nemoto a favor and run his #37 in Decatur pole qualifying, but medical clearance was harder to come by with Master Cup officials, and as such he was not cleared to compete.

Delgado then entered the Daytona GP in the #77 car. He was running near the front before a crash which partially tore his ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament). He was off the pace, trying to feather the car home after the wreck until he got involved in another accident, which ended the night for him. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where things took a turn for the worst. Delgado suffered a second heart attack due to a blood clot which traveled up his legs and settled into his heart, which required emergency surgery. Delgado was released and allowed to return home to New York on December 22nd, three days before Christmas. A few days later, he and Ashley Tucker were married in a private ceremony at Delgado's home in Brooklyn, as he was not able to travel due to his injuries. They were to be married in Puerto Rico, but Delgado's chaotic end to 2012 scuttled that.

2013 - ASCC Interest?
Tom Delgado will begin rehab for his partially torn ACL in January. Due to the fragile nature of his knee, he is expected to take extra time to rehab from his injury, potentially up to 3 months. When 100%, Delgado says that he will check with his doctors and see if he can get medical clearance to run one more race before hanging up the helmet for good. "I've got unfinished business in the state of New York. I need to win on my turf, even if it ends up killing me" Delgado said in a radio interview about his inability to win a race in his home state.

In March of 2013, Delgado confirmed that he had received several offers from ASCC teams for the 2013 season. He is expected to make his decision in early April. In an interview, Delgado said that he is only interested in running for a team that can promise him a good shot at a championship. He ended up re-joining his first TM Master Cup Series team Ocean Motorsports, old wounds having been patched up from way back when he left the first time. He qualified for the 2013 chase for the championship, but fell apart in the final race and came up short of the title.

2014 - ASCC Champion & Master Cup Return
Staying with Ocean Motorsports for the 2014 ASCC season, Delgado made sure he did not fail twice, qualifying for the chase and subsequently winning the championship. He would run the 2014 Round of South Carolina for his Master Cup team DeGarmo-Delgado Enterprises, finishing 16th and costing Leonid Roderick the race win by not allowing him to pass on the final lap. Delgado defended this by saying "I didn't come here to lay down and die for anyone. It's your problem if you can't pass me, not mine". He claimed he received several death threats from Roderick's fans over social media after the race. Despite this, he was not fined for his actions or his comments.

He attempted to qualify for the Karjala Grand Prix, but withdrew himself before the final round of qualifying due to illness. He did not attempt the Round of Indianapolis, opting to repay a favor to Jim Hayes and put him in a DeGarmo-Delgado car. Hayes would race at the Round of Wisconsin, but would fail to qualify for Indy.

Fortunes would change for Delgado as the TM Master Cup Series season drew to its conclusion, as Lenard International came calling, offering Delgado a stronger car for his home race as well as a few other events if the partnership worked. Delgado's debut for the team came at the Round of New York, where he finished 8th after being as high as 4th late in the race.

Delgado would once again pilot the #37 TirADE Lenard at the Round of Chicago, and while he was not as fast as he was in New York, he still ended up finishing a respectable 15th, good for a few more points. He did not show up in British Columbia, but would attempt to qualify for the Round of Decatur, and would be successful in doing so, topping the charts in the 3rd and final round of qualifications. He ended up finishing 9th.

2015 & 2016 - A New Fight
Inactive in racing for all of 2015, Delgado's health problems reared their head again on December 26th as he announced he had been diagnosed with stage 1 non-hodgkins lymphoma, a form of cancer. He would begin treatment immediately, and would be cleared to return to motorsports activities nearly three months later, but he opted to stay out longer just to make sure his recovery was properly done.

2017 & 2018 - A Champion's Exit/The Second Retirement
In a bid to take home another driver's championship, Delgado named himself as the second full-time driver for Tom Delgado Racing's Dash Cup efforts alongside Carla Rosinski. Delgado won 3 races, including the finale which has been dubbed the "Miracle in Manhattan", overcoming a 79 point deficit to win the championship.

He then came back to the US and entered the 2017 Rockford 200, successfully making the race as the last person to qualify on time. He proclaimed that the 200 would be his last race and that he'd like to go out by finally winning a major race for the first time in his career. To put it nicely...that didn't exactly happen. Delgado was running well in stage 2 of the race when he was involved in an accident with Liam O'Connor. The damage was significant and Delgado requested the team not bother to try and get him back out since they were now out of contention to transfer to stage 3. Tom Delgado's "final hunt" had ended in disappointment.

During this year he also opened up the Tom Delgado Racing School, based in upstate New York, minutes away from the New York Autoring, which Delgado frequently rents for his students. He has been rumored to be planning a bid to take over control of the facility and build a massive campus around the site, while using the track as a TDR test facility.

After the 2017 Rockford 200, Delgado announced that his team would suspend racing operations for the 2018 season, citing a desire from all involved to take a break from the grind of preparing race cars. During the winter, he would tear the ACL in both of his knees in a freak snow-shoveling accident where he fell very awkwardly. If he had any plans of racing in 2018, which we now know he didn't, he admitted he'd be out for the year. However, as of May 2018, Delgado is back in the gym working his way back from the injury. While he's not training for a comeback, he plans to become more involved in his wife Ashley Tucker's career, accompanying her to races and advising her.

2019 - Another Comeback
On January 10, 2019, Delgado announced on his Twitter account that he was making another comeback. This time, he announced that he's coming back to go after a TM Master Cup Series championship. However, his high salary demands and insistence on driving only for a serious championship contender or a team with a real shot at winning the Independent's Trophy may prevent him from being picked up for the 2019 season, as most top-tier teams either have their lineups set in stone, or view him as too old and with too much of an attitude. Despite all these negatives, he is considered one of the biggest names on the free agent market.

Delgado insists this comeback is to fight against the notion that age 40 & up is a death sentence. "You can't stop doing what you love just because you've had a few birthdays. My goal is to show the world that being over 40, over 50, over 60 is not a death sentence. We old guys can do the job just as well as the young guys" Delgado said in an interview as his justification for his comeback. The media at large has been rather dismissive of Delgado's new-found attitude, with one media outlet criticizing Delgado's ambition as "Yet another desperate cry for attention. He can't stand being out of the spotlight. He's a con artist of the highest degree, yet we all fall for it and love it. That attitude needs to change"

On February 16, he announced that he was ending his bid for a full time seat for the 2019 season, opting instead to apply for an Independent's Trophy bid as well as formally submitting entry papers for the 2019 Indianapolis 500. It's believed he came to the decision to not run full time due to the fact that he'd have to miss races to participate in rookie orientation as well as qualifying and potentially the race if he were to make it onto the grid.

As the month of May approaches, Delgado & his team have begun stepping up their preparations for the Indianapolis 500, of which he is entered. As his Independent's Trophy races don't start until September, as well as the fact that TDR is currently not set to be entered in any of the special events, both driver and team have gone into full-Indy preparation mode with the intention of not just putting their car in the show, but challenging for the victory.

2020: The End (For Real This Time)
On June 23, it was revealed that Delgado had a total knee replacement procedure done on his right knee in February. He had attempted to keep it private and build himself back up for what he believed would be one more last hurrah. That same day, Delgado announced that he was retiring again, claiming that his body was telling him that he was done. "The fire's still there, but the body is no longer willing" Delgado tweeted in a three-part post.

Illness & Death
On January 15, 2021, Delgado tweeted that his cancer had returned and this time it had spread to other areas of his body. He also said that he would not seek treatment and instead "await my end at home", retiring from public life with immediate effect.

Delgado passed away quietly in his sleep on March 8, 2021. He was 46 at the time of his death. In accordance of his wishes, he requested no funeral or memorial ceremonies. He will be cremated and have his ashes spread in a private location.

Personal Life
Delgado is a very private person, except when he's on Twitter. Among racing dignitaries, Delgado's Twitter account (RealTomDelgado) is the 5th most followed, behind only reigning TM Master Cup champion Adrien Devereux, former champions Alexis Rainsford & Leonid Roderick, & former FARC champion Ryan Matthews. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, but owns a winter residence in Miami, Florida as well as vacation homes in England and Japan.

Delgado is also extremely popular overseas, especially in Japan, as he drove for Japan-based Star Team Nemoto in his career.