Eliška Junková-Khásová, also known as Elisabeth Junek, was a Czechoslovak automobile racer. She is regarded as one of the greatest female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history. She died in a car crash in 1958, aged 48, in the city of Brno.
About Eliška Junková in brief
Eliška Junková-Khásová, also known as Elisabeth Junek, was a Czechoslovak automobile racer. She is regarded as one of the greatest female drivers in Grand Prix motor racing history, and is the first woman to win a Grand Prix event. She was born on November 16, 1900, in Olomouc, Habsburg Moravia, listed in the registrar’s office as Betke Pospisilová. At the age of 16, she met young banker Vincenc \”Čeněk\” Junek. He was several years older than her, and the two soon began a courtship. She too soon fell for the charms of sports cars of the time, especially Bugattis. In 1926, she was runner up in the Klausenpass hill climb in Switzerland. She competed in the Targa Florio in Sicily for the first time in 1927, driving a 2. 3-litre Bugatti Type 35B with her husband as accompanying mechanic-passenger. This was a tough 8-hour race over mountain roads, where stamina was as necessary as speed, due to the demands of the rough and often muddy course.
She gained fame across the continent, garnering the nickname Queen of the Steering Wheel, and in the racing press of the day, Eliška became anglicized to Elizabeth. Shortly thereafter, she won the Brno-Sobice hillclimb and then also won the two-class sports car class of the German Grand Prix at the new Nürburgring circuit. She died in a car crash in 1958, aged 48, in the city of Brno, Czechoslovakia. She left behind a husband and two children, and a son and a daughter, who went on to become a successful businessman and businessman of his own. She also had a daughter with her second husband, who died of cancer in 1992. She had a son with her third husband, Vincen, who was also a racing driver. He won the Zbraslav-Jíloviště hillcl climb in 1922, the year they finally married.
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