| Two-times Australian Touring Car Champion and perennial Bathurst ‘bridesmaid’ Glenn Seton, will be the Patron of the 2009 Phillip Island Classic Festival of Motorsport from March 13-15, which is being supported by Shannons and the VACC.
Seton, who remains one of only five drivers alongside the late Peter Brock, Dick Johnson, John Bowe and Mark Skaife to have competed in over 200 touring car rounds, will race a BMW M3 in the headline combined Group C & Group A races at the meeting.
Now owned and usually driven by NSW historic racer Rob Ingram, the Schnitzer-developed M3 famously won the Wellington 500 street race in New Zealand in the late 1980s, crewed by Emanuele Pirro and Roberto Ravaglia.
It will be one of five of the potent 2.3 litre four cylinder E30 BMW models racing at the meeting. Seton’s competitors will include Craig Markland in his rapid Nissan Skyline HR31, Mike Roddy in his 1985 Bathurst-winning V12 Jaguar XJS, numerous Torana A9X models, at least two Walkinshaw VL Commodores and a number of BMW 635s, Mustangs and Escorts.
Glenn Seton, aged four, in billycart mode
In between races and autograph sessions, Glenn will also help his famous father Barry ‘Bo’ with the set-up of the Ford Capri he will run in the Group Nc touring car events at the ‘Classic, which is now the largest motorsport event of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. Meanwhile Glenn’s 10 year-old son Aaron – already a karting veteran of three years and a rising star – may also be at Phillip Island to complete three generations of racing Setons at the meeting.
Born in May 1965 – just months before his father won the final Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island in a Cortina GT – Glenn Seton is one of the youngest ‘veterans’ of Australian motorsport.
After partnering his father at Bathurst for two years, he began racing his own Ford Capri in the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1984. However he was soon headhunted by Fred Gibson to Nissan Motorsport, first driving a Nissan Pulsar Exa and then a Nissan Skyline DR30. After forming his own Glenn Seton Racing team in 1989, he won his first Australian Touring Car title in 1993 and repeated the feat in 1997, driving GSR Ford Falcons on both occasions.
Despite this success, victory at Bathurst has eluded him. He started from pole position in 1994 and 1996 and finished second three times, but the closest he has come to victory so far was in 1995, when his Falcon’s engine failed while leading, just nine laps from the finish. He moved to Ford Tickford Racing from 1999 to 2001, then spent another year in his own team in 2002 before selling it to Prodrive in 2003. He continued to drive for the team for two more seasons while its name changed to Ford Performance Racing and later drove for Dick Johnson Racing in 2005.
Today, Glenn Seton remains in high demand as an endurance driver. After ‘defecting’ to the Holden Racing Team in 2007 and 2008, he will this year partner Tony D’Alberto in his ex-Skaife Holden Motorsport Commodore in the major Phillip Island and Bathurst enduros, while engineering the car for D’Alberto in the V8 Supercar series at sprint rounds. He is also currently involved in setting up race cars for a variety of people in the Biante series and Historic racing, actively helps his son Aaron with his karting career and – in his spare time – races his own Group Nc Ford Capri. |
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