They purchased a
Mercedes that same year, and then a
Bugatti Type 30 which had previously been raced in the
French Grand Prix. Initially she served as riding mechanic to her husband, but a hand injury incurred during the war affected his ability to shift gears, and this afforded her the opportunity to take the wheel in his place. Eliška's first professional race was in 1923, with Čeněk at her side. The following year, she raced by herself, winning her class at the
Lochotín-
Třemošná hillclimb event which made her a national celebrity overnight. She then placed first at Zbraslav-Jíloviště in 1925, and the Juneks bought a second Bugatti to celebrate, together building a close friendship with
Ettore Bugatti.
1928 Targa Florio With her sights firmly set on winning the 1928 Targa Florio, she acquired a new Type 35B to keep her competitive with the top male racers. Race organiser
Conte Vincenzo Florio arranged for Vincenzo Gargotta, one of his press officers and a local resident, to accompany her on sighting laps around the course. Periodically she would stop to put chalk marks on posts, walls and trees along the route. This year, there was a strong field with works entries from Bugatti, Maserati and
Alfa Romeo. On race day, the cars were flagged off at two-minute intervals, with Junková starting well into the second half of the grid, coincidentally just ahead of Candrilli again. The fastest car on the first lap was
Louis Chiron in his works Bugatti, followed by
Giuseppe Campari in an Alfa Romeo and Chiron's teammate
Albert Divo. Junková was a remarkable fourth on elapsed time, barely 30 seconds behind Chiron, showing her skill and the value of her meticulous preparation. On the second lap, Chiron pushed too hard and went off. Divo had pitted and this put Junková into the overall lead, having passed many of the twenty cars that had started ahead of her. Divo, an experienced Grand Prix veteran, had started just ahead of her, and, by now following closely, she was ahead of him on elapsed time. Meanwhile, Campari pushed very hard to take the lead by the end of the third lap after four and a half hours. He built his lead, only to lose time with a puncture and driving the last 10 kilometres on the wheel rim. Going into the final lap, Junková was still in second and had closed to within a minute, with Divo ten seconds back on elapsed time. Campari crossed the line first of the leaders, but as he had started forty minutes ahead, everyone waited for the rest to arrive to determine the actual winner. First to appear was
Conte Caberto Conelli in his works Bugatti T37, finishing faster than Campari. Divo came through faster still and eyes were looking for "Miss Bugatti" (as the locals called her). It was not to be, as in the last half of the lap she had suffered a puncture, losing two vital minutes while her husband, as mechanic, changed the tyre. The stop also overheated the engine and they were stymied by loss of radiator water, so she had to ease back to nurse the car home. She finished a creditable fifth out of only twelve finishers, eventually almost nine minutes behind the winner, Divo, and beating 25 other top drivers, including the likes of
Luigi Fagioli,
René Dreyfus,
Ernesto Maserati and
Tazio Nuvolari. In his book
My Two Lives, Dreyfus says: Her tenacity and determination were remarkable. For this event, she travelled to Sicily with a governess and a car like the one with which she would compete, a full month before the race. She began slowly, one lap one day, two laps the next and so on - she must have put up thirty or forty laps in that car. She knew the course better than anybody. She really pounded her Bugatti; it was a very used car by race day, but she had thought ahead of course and the Bugatti team arrived with the new car she had ordered, a T35B painted black and yellow and arranged to have delivered to the course. She was ready with her plan. In the early laps of the race she started to scare the wits out of the other drivers - being beaten by a woman was unthinkable then - and she was up with the leaders until the final lap. What she hadn't considered in all her careful pre-race calculations and what she couldn't have foreseen, was that mechanical problems might interfere with her plan. When they did, she was forced to drop back. Still, she finished fifth - a terrific showing. Nobody who was in that Targa, ever forgot that formidable Lady. Vincenzo Florio warmly congratulated her at the finish and, begging Divo's pardon, called her the moral victor of the day. ==Retirement from racing==