Glenn Seton's two Touring Car titles and his near misses at Bathurst

Glenn Seton grew up around Sydney motor racing and went on to take two Australian Touring Car titles, in 1993 and 1997, while running his own team. His father Barry won the 1965 Bathurst 1000, and Glenn came close to the same prize more than once without taking it. His career moved through Nissan, Ford and Holden machinery before he settled into Touring Car Masters racing.

Where did Seton's racing begin?

Seton grew up in south-west Sydney and built a karting record before a heavy crash at Oran Park Raceway at 17 turned him towards cars. In 1983 he drove a Ford Capri for his father's team, and that year he also made his Bathurst 1000 debut alongside his father.

In 1984 he contested three rounds of the Touring Car Championship in the Capri. Later that year he moved into Nissan Motorsport's endurance programme, and his father went with him as the team's engine builder.

Early in that Nissan period he took a Pulsar EXA to the 1984 Castrol 500 at Sandown, co-driving with Christine Gibson, whose husband Fred would later employ him.

A two-time Australian Touring Car champion who came closest to Bathurst glory without ever taking the big prize.

How did the Nissan years go?

Seton remained with Nissan from 1984 until the close of 1988, a period of steady rather than spectacular progress. His first significant win came in 1986, when he and George Fury took the Sandown 500, and it set the tone for the endurance side of his career.

The strongest single season of those Nissan years was 1987. He finished second to Jim Richards in the championship and lost the title only in the last race at Oran Park.

Alongside John Bowe he also took second in that year's James Hardie 1000. Those Nissan years were more about endurance results than championship titles. The place was only confirmed after the Eggenberger Ford Sierras ahead of them were thrown out of the result.

Later in 1987 he competed at Suzuka in the Japanese championship with Anders Olofsson. They finished fourth in the closing round, the only major race he drove outside Australasia.

1988 went badly. The new Skyline HR31 GTS-R reached the team in mid-season and could not get on terms with the far more powerful Sierras. At both the Sandown 500 and the Tooheys 1000 the car retired on the first lap with a gearbox failure.

What did Glenn Seton Racing achieve?

Seton and his father quit Nissan at the end of 1988 and set up Glenn Seton Racing, which operated from 1989 until 2002. Its Sierra years brought only one championship round win, at Symmons Plains in 1992, though Seton remained a strong endurance driver.

In 1989 the team wrote off its only car at Lakeside, which forced it to miss two rounds. With George Fury he won the 1990 Sandown 500, a result that contributed to the Australian Endurance Championship that year.

New Group 3A rules for 1993 pushed the team towards a V8 Ford Falcon EB. The team ran Falcons at the end-of-season endurance races in 1992, and Seton was the first driver to qualify a Falcon inside the Bathurst top ten since 1984.

How did Seton win the 1993 and 1997 championships?

The Falcon paid off. Seton took the national Touring Car title in 1993 and again in 1997, and he was never lower than third in the championship between 1993 and 1997. The end of tobacco sponsorship in 1996 then cut the team's budget.

Bathurst stayed out of reach. He qualified on pole there in 1994 and 1996, but reliability problems on race day undermined those efforts again and again.

The 1995 race was the bitterest. He led in the closing laps before an engine failure stopped him. The race came 30 years after his father's Bathurst win, and Seton was 30 years old at the time, running car number 30.

A promotional deal would have paid him $30,000 instead, or his father's Bathurst-winning car, had he won that race.

What happened at Ford Tickford Racing and Ford Performance Racing?

Between 1999 and 2001 Ford Australia's extra backing turned the team into Ford Tickford Racing, with cars for Neil Crompton and Steven Richards. Seton's last solo race win came at Winton in 2000, and he ended that year fifth before falling to 16th in 2001.

A testing crash at Phillip Island cost him the 2000 Sandown round.

In 2002 the team dropped to a single car and lost the Tickford link, but Ford Credit remained as title sponsor, a backer Seton had had since 1996.

At the end of 2002 he sold the operation to Prodrive, which renamed it Ford Performance Racing, and he stayed on as a driver. In 2003 the team fielded three cars, including Craig Lowndes and David Besnard, and Lowndes and Seton finished second at Bathurst that year, repeating the result in 2004.

The 2003 result was his first Bathurst podium, because the 1987 second place only became a podium after later disqualifications. In 2004 the team suffered a run of engine failures, and he finished 15th in the championship, five places ahead of Lowndes.

Why did Seton leave Dick Johnson Racing?

In 2005 Seton joined Dick Johnson Racing, a team he had rivalled throughout the 1990s. The move did not work out. He was sacked halfway through a two-year contract after a disappointing season, and Will Davison replaced him for 2006.

Without a full-time seat for 2006, he drove two V8 Supercar endurance races for Stone Brothers Racing alongside James Courtney. Sandown ended in ninth after brake problems, while Bathurst brought third, his third Bathurst podium in four years.

He then moved to Holden Racing Team for the 2007 and 2008 endurance races, teaming up with Mark Skaife, a childhood friend and former Nissan teammate. It was the first time he had driven a Holden. In 2007 he finished 13th at Sandown with Tony Longhurst and 11th at Bathurst with Nathan Pretty.

How did Seton finish his driving career?

Seton made his last Bathurst appearance in 2010, driving with Jason Bargwanna for Kelly Racing. He then retired from full-time driving and moved into a run of Touring Car Masters seasons, which included his first Bathurst race win. It closed a long Bathurst career that began with his father in 1983.

In Touring Car Masters he finally won a race at Bathurst in 2011. Until then he had not taken a race win at the circuit in any category.

The Great Southern 4 Hour fell to him in 2013, in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 shared with Bob Pearson. In 2017 he was second in class at the Bathurst 12 Hour, driving with his son Aaron.

What is Seton doing now?

Seton is now involved in Australian speedway, and he has travelled to the United States with Jamie McHugh, a former Australian Super Sedan champion. He has lived on the Gold Coast since 2004, far from the Sydney roots where his career began.

His son Aaron has also raced, and he is employed on the mechanical side of Dick Johnson Racing. The family's motorsport connections run through several generations of the sport.

Career summary at a glance