Touring / Sports Cars
This led to racing a Porsche 956 for fellow Aussie Vern Schuppan in the ] series and a drive in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1990. He had five races in the British Touring car Championship in 1989 and 1990 with two podiums. On returning to Australia he was picked up by Frank Gardner who was running Tony Longhurst's touring car team for the 1988 endurance season as a co-driver for Longhurst.
The pair won the jewel in the crown, the 1988 Bathurst 1000 in a Ford Sierra RS500. Mezera returned to Europe to continue his pursuit of racing professionally overseas, returning to Australia for the endurance season, racing for the Holden Racing Team or for Perkins Engineering. He finished third with Larry Perkins in the 1990 Bathurst 1000 and the pair won the 1990 Nissan Sydney 500 at Eastern Creek Raceway.
When Win Percy returned to England after the 1991 season, Mezera was asked by Tom Walkinshaw to replace Percy as the manager of HRT, a job he continued in for two seasons. It was Mezera who put HRT on the path to what it became in the late 90's and it could be said that much of HRT's success in 1996 could be linked to what Mezera had brought to the team in the previous couple of seasons.
Mezera was actually the first pole sitter when the ATCC became what we know today as V8 Supercars in 1993. He continued to race for HRT until the end of the 1995 season, replaced by Craig Lowndes. His full-time racing career wound down at that point although he continued to get drives as a hired gun for many Holden teams before starting his own team in 1998.
In 2001 he made a return to the Holden Racing Team as an endurance driver and finished third in the 2002 Bathurst 1000 and fourth at the Queensland 500 showing all those around him he still had what it takes to be a leading driver.
He retired from racing in 2004 and is now a Driving Standards Official for CAMS and V8 Supercars Australia
Read more about this topic: Tomas Mezera
Famous quotes containing the words sports and/or cars:
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)
“Cuchulain stirred,
Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard
The cars of battle and his own name cried;
And fought with the invulnerable tide.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)