The diminutive Elisabeth Junek came close to winning the 1928
Targa Florio against the big stars of the day – including Nuvolari
PAUL FEARNLEYPHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE BUGATTI TRUSTSicilian sensation
B
oth had contested the race once before. Both were
driving a supercharged 2.3-litre Bugatti Type 35B.
But there the similarities ended. Parisian Albert
Divo was a vastly experienced professional – rated
France’s best by some – who had won grands prix
for Sunbeam and Delage. Elisabeth Junek (an Anglicised name)
was a 5ft 1in woman from the Moravia region of Czechoslovakia.
She had been competing since 1922, initially as co-driver to her
Prague banker husband, nicknamed ‘Cenek’ – apparently changing
gear on occasion due to his wartime hand injury – before taking
over the controls in 1924. She impressed on local events before
fi nishing fourth overall to win the three-litre category of the 1927
German GP, run to sportscar regulations, at the Nurburgring.
Sicily’s Targa Florio, however, was a step too far, surely. Held
over fi ve laps of a wild, 67-mile road course that wound
and climbed 3000ft into the mountains, it was the season’s
toughest test of man and machine. Man and machine.
Her 1927 attempt had been cut short by stiff ening steering –
probably triggered by Cenek’s minor accident during practice –
that almost sent her Bugatti over a precipice. But she had learned a
lot and was undaunted. When that year’s winner Emilio Materassi,
a tough nut, quizzically squeezed her slim shoulder, Junek tapped
her forehead. All had been noted (literally) and stored for future use.
This painstaking process continued in 1928. Junek arrived on the
island two weeks before the 6 May event and, according to admiring
rival Rene Dreyfus, completed as many as 40 reconnaissance laps in
a brace of Bugattis: a T38 tourer and an unblown T35 racer. (Cenek,
meanwhile, had returned home and left her to it.) She walked42 AUTOSPORT.COM 22 AUGUST 2019