MIXED amongst the 38-car Toyota 86 Racing Series field which tackled Mount Panorama on the weekend were both rookies and one man who has been racing at Bathurst for more than 30 years.
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That man was Glenn Seton.
Given an invitational seat in the one-make series, the now 53-year-old enjoyed the chance to once more take on a circuit he knows so well.
“I always enjoy getting the opportunity to come here to Bathurst,” the Australian Touring Car legend said.
“The [the Toyota 86] is a great little car and I’m really enjoying being part of it.”
While most of those who competed in the Toyota 86 Bathurst round were not even born when Seton made his Great Race debut in 1983, he still enjoyed the experience.
“It’s great to have the guest drivers just to have a bit of fun with the kids and be someone to walk up to say ‘How do I do this? Or how do I do that?’, and I know I’m not going to be competitive because my day has gone, but it’s good to have someone to bounce off,” he said.
The Toyota 86 Racing Series had three races over weekend, the first of which was ended prematurely after a massive incident approaching The Cutting on the first lap.
Four cars had to be towed back to the pits, while others were licking their wounds as well.
Seton was just behind the incident, but his vast experience saw him able to squeeze his #17 Toyota Australia entry between stranded rivals and the concrete walls.
“I could see it all going on up in front … I could see cars bouncing off walls and I knew cars bouncing off walls were going to come back onto the track, so I just got right out of it, hard on the brakes and just drove up right through the centre as it appeared really,” Seton said.
“I just slowed up enough that all of it had settled down by the time I got there and I had a clear run through there.
“I don’t know what started it because I was a little bit too far back to see the original part of it. I saw a car firing off to the right and into the wall and I thought that there will be some carnage here and that it would be a big mess.”
Seton’s last Bathurst 1000 start was in 2010 with Jason Bargwanna, but since then he’s returned to the track in the Touring Car Masters and now Toyota 86s.
The Seton name is synonymous with Australian motor sport, as Barry Seton who won the Bathurst 500 in 1965, and his Glenn a two-time Supercars champion in 1993 and 1997.
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