Glenn Seton

Glenn Seton (born 5 May 1965) is an Australian racing driver. He won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1993 and 1997 while driving for his own team. Although he never won the Bathurst 1000 like his father Bo Seton did in 1965, Glenn has started from pole position in 1994 and 1996, and finished second three times. He came close to winning the race in 1995, holding a significant lead in the closing stages, but his engine failed 9 laps from the finish.

Seton, father of Courtney and Aaron Seton and husband to Jayne Seton, retired from full-time racing after the 2005 V8 Supercar season, and is only one of five drivers to have competed in over 200 rounds in the series. The other drivers are Dick Johnson (202), John Bowe (225), Mark Skaife (214) and Peter Brock (212). In the past he has run his own team for a number of years. He has usually raced Fords and Nissan's in the Australian Touring Car Championship since making his debut in his dad's Ford Capri in the 1984 ATCC.

Career

He raced for his father's team, in 1983 driving a Ford Capri, then Nissan Motorsports from the 1984 Australian Endurance Championship until his last year with the team in 1988, driving first in a Nissan Pulsar EXA in the 1984 Castrol 500 at Sandown in Melbourne, and then at the 1984 James Hardie 1000, both times alongside Christine Gibson, the wife of his future boss Fred Gibson. His best year with Nissan came in 1987 driving the Nissan Skyline RS DR30 when he would finish second behind Jim Richards in the ATCC. Teamed with John Bowe, Seton would then finish second in the 1987 James Hardie 1000 which that year was part of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship.

1988 would be a frustrating year for Seton. Nissan introduced the new Skyline HR31 GTS-R, and with the car arriving only mid-season, the team could not get on terms with the much more powerful Ford Sierra RS500's. The cars initial unreliability saw Seton's Skyline retire from the first lap at both the Sandown 500 and Tooheys 1000, both times when the cars production based gearbox failed.

Following this, Seton and his father Bo left the Nissan team at the end of 1988 to set up Glenn Seton Racing, which ran from 1989 to 2002, initially driving the all-powerful Sierra's before moving to drive one of the new V8 Ford EB Falcon's in 1992 where he became the first driver to put a Falcon into the top 10 qualifiers at Bathurst since 1984. The move to the new V8 formula would prove fruitful for Seton, winning the 1993 and 1997 Australian Touring Car Championships, while claiming pole position at Bathurst in 1994 and 1996.

After 2002, Seton then sold the team to Prodrive and the team name was changed to Ford Performance Racing, with Seton retained as the lead driver. After leaving the team he created he found a drive with Dick Johnson Racing in 2005. In late 2005 after a disappointing season, Seton was sacked from Dick Johnson Racing halfway through his two-year contract.

Seton was not able to find a 2006 full-time drive, so he joined Stone Brothers Racing for the two V8 Supercar endurance races, including the Bathurst 1000. Brake issues hampered the #4 SBR Falcon at Sandown where it finished ninth. At Bathurst, the master and apprentice drove smart and finished a hard fought third. Seton moved from Ford and joined his childhood friend and old Nissan Skyline team mate Mark Skaife and for the first time in Seton's career, to drive in a Holden Commodore with the Holden Racing Team as an endurance driver for 2007. He finished 13th in the Sandown 500 with Tony Longhurst and 11th in the Bathurst 1000 with Nathan Pretty. Seton again joined the Holden Racing Team in 2008, driving the #2 car with Craig Baird. The pair came 14th at the Phillip Island 500 and were running strongly at the Bathurst 1000 until a late race clash with Warren Luff put them out of the race.

Seton is currently involved in the Australian Speedway scene and has travelled to the US with 2007/08 and 2009/10 Australian Super Sedan Champion, Jamie McHugh^[1]

In 2013 Seton won the 2013 Great Southern 4 Hour, sharing a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 with Bob Pearson.

When Glenn Seton was growing up, his motor racing idol was a former team mate of his fathers, Allan Moffat.

Career results

The Ford EL Falcon in which Seton won the 1997 Australian Touring Car Championship

External links

• Seton joining Holden
• Bathurst stats

References