from the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
Recently in this column we told the story of Camille du Gast, the first woman to achieve fame as a racing driver. The response to the piece prompted the question: "Who was the greatest woman racing driver?"
Down the years since Camille du Gast blazed a trail for other female drivers there have been many great women racing drivers.
But a slight, attractive Czechoslovakian lady from Prague, whose exploits remain almost unknown, the great Elizabeth Junek, remains the foremost candidate for the title of the greatest female racing driver the world has yet seen.
Elizabeth Junek only came to motor racing through her marriage at age 21 to Cenek Junek, a banker and enthusiastic motorist.
In 1921 he taught his young fiancée to drive and the following year he began to race. Married the following year, Elizabeth sought to share Cenek's pursuits and turned to racing herself.
Sharing a Bugatti, Cenek and Elizabeth won a number of events in 1924 before Elizabeth made her solo race debut at the Plzen-Tremosna hillclimb.
Not only did she become the first woman to start a motor sport event in Czechoslovakia but she won it outright as well!
For the 1925 season Elizabeth trained and prepared herself in a very dedicated fashion.
Well aware that she lacked the physical strength of her male competitors she determined that her brain would be her greatest asset. She watched and remembered, for she developed a facility for learning a track or road course.
First she would walk the course, making sketches and recording all the details of surface and the other factors, which would allow her to realise the full potential of her Bugatti. She won the Zbraslav-Jiloviste hillclimb and followed this with a fine class win in the Brno-Sobesice race, which Cenek won outright. In practice for the Dubi-Cinvald race her Bugatti failed and instead she drove a Panhard-Levassor to victory. It was to be her only victory in a car other than a Bugatti.
The 1926 season began with more Czechoslovakian victories before making her international debut in the famous Klausenpass hillclimb where she finished second. In 1927 she entered the famous Targa Florio in Sicily, regarded as the toughest motor race in the world.
Regarded by the pundits as having no chance of victory in this race, Elizabeth was fourth at the end of the first lap and then second at the end of the next lap. On the third lap her steering seized and she was out.
For her efforts, the Royal Sicilian Automobile Club awarded her a special gold medal for her "exceptional courage and skill".
The year 1927 saw her win her class in the inaugural Grand Prix on the Nürburgring circuit, and with that win, Elizabeth Junek was now firmly accepted as one of Europe's greatest racing drivers. In 1928 she returned to the Targa Florio. Once again she gave of her best and on the final lap was in second place and gaining easily on the leader, Campari, when she punctured a rear tyre on a rock lying on the road.
The subsequent delay dropped her to fifth place at the finish. Her drive on that day remains one of the epic drives in motor racing history.
Shortly afterwards, Cenek was killed in the German Grand Prix, and Elizabeth Junek, her heart no longer in motor sport, never raced again.
To this day, although her racing career only lasted five short years, she remains an almost legendary figure, a slight, attractive girl who was more than a match for the greatest male drivers of her day.