Barry Seton

Who is Barry Seton?

Barry Seton, is an Australian racing driver. He won the Bathurst 500 in 1965 with co-driver Midge Bosworth driving a Ford Cortina GT500. He has competed in the Bathurst 500 22 times, competing every year from 1963 to 1984, and completing the race in fifteen of those. In addition to his outright win in 1965, he won his class at Bathurst in 1976, 1977 and 1980.

Seton, who suffered from Polio as a child, was particularly noted for his mastery of the Ford Capri in the mid-1970s, registering not only the class wins at Bathurst, but also winning the Sun-7 Rothmans 3-Litre Series at Amaroo Park.

For his 21st Bathurst start in 1983, his co-driver was his son, Glenn Seton making the first of so far 25 Great Race starts and who would go on to became a two time ATCC winner. The pair were leading Class B by over a lap when their Ford Capri blew its engine resulting in a DNF.

His last start, in the 1984 James Hardie 1000 was driving a Group A Ford Mustang paired with long time co-driver Don Smith. The pair finished 20th outright and 3rd in Group A.

He later became known as an engine builder, firstly with the Peter Jackson Nissan Team building their turbcharged engines from 1986 until 1988 before Glenn formed his own team, Glenn Seton Racing in 1989. Seton joined his son and was chief engine builder of the teams Ford Sierra RS500's until the team switched to racing the V8 Ford Falcon in late 1992. Seton also build a number of customer engines mostly for privateer V8 Supercar teams. He left his son's team after 1995 in order to give himself a new challenge and was immediately snapped up by Tony Longhurst Racing as their chief engine builder from 1996.