On this day: Dominant Seton joins all-time greats

To 2021, just 25 drivers have won an Australian Touring Car Championship/Supercars drivers’ title. Just 13 have won more than one.

Supercars Hall of Famer Glenn Seton officially claimed the first of two championships on this day in 1993 at Oran Park, just weeks after he clinched the crown in Perth.

The introduction of five-litre regulations for the 1993 ATCC saw the return of a V8-powered Falcon to the category for the first time since 1984.

Seton - whose career is covered in the V8 Sleuth-published book, 'Seto: The Official Racing History of Glenn Seton’ - finished second in 1987 aboard a Gibson-prepared Nissan Skyline.

Seton (#30) in the pack at Oran Park

In the following seasons, he recorded finishes of 14th, seventh, seventh, fourth and fifth.

Come 1993 and Seton's Peter Jackson-backed squad, which featured 1980 Formula One world champion Alan Jones, looked like one of the teams to beat.

Ford hadn’t won a drivers’ title since Dick Johnson in 1989, with Gibson Skylines the cars to beat before the regulations changed.

Seton’s team built two new cars for 1993, having raced one of the new-specification Falcons at the 1992 Sandown 500.

Seton on track at Oran Park

The 27-year-old Seton began his title charge with third at the Amaroo season-opener, which was won by John Bowe.

Power steering pump problems scuppered his hopes at the following round at Symmons Plains, but from there Seton went on a tear.

He qualified fastest at Phillip Island, which will return to the series in October, and won both races in a canter.

Teammate Jones won at Lakeside, before he swept both races at Winton. Another sweep at Eastern Creek followed, where the Commodore aerodynamics packages were tweaked.

By then, Seton was a class above. Had had taken six wins in 13 starts, and claimed another race and round win at Mallala to inch closer to the title.

Seton was a crowd favourite

In Perth, with Bowe was stuck in the sand and Jones sixth, Seton had done enough to clinch the 1993 title ahead of the Oran Park season finale.

In early August, the championship arrived in western Sydney for the ninth and final round of 1993.

A pair of fourths behind winners Peter Brock and Jim Richards saw Seton finish fourth for the weekend, with the title official when cars crossed the line.

August 8, 1993: Seton had become the 14th driver to win the ATCC, and the fifth to win in a Ford after Ian Geoghegan, Norm Beechey, Allan Moffat and Johnson.

Sixth for Jones helped him to second in the championship, giving the Peter Jackson team a memorable one-two finish.

Seton had done it his way, and finally reached the top. All up, he won seven of the season’s 18 races, and four of the nine rounds. He did so without claiming a pole all season.

Between 1993 and 1997, Seton finished in the top three of the championship in each year.

The end of tobacco sponsorship in Australia did little to slow Seton, who won the 1997 title in his own single-car, eponymous team.

To date, the 1997 title remains the last time an owner/driver and single car team won the greatest prize, with the car recently going to auction.