John Blazier, founder of the National Indy 500 Collectors Club has made an observation. John remarked that “when ever I meet someone who truly loves the 500 it seems they were first exposed to the Speedway before they were twelve years old”. Bill Enoch was born in October 1924 and attended his first 500 with his father in 1935 at the age of ten. Bill Enoch loved the 500.

Bill married his child-hood sweetheart when he was 18 and Delores was 17. They would have celebrated their 60th anniversary in December. Bill served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II where a touch of color-blindness gave him an uncanny ability to see details in black and white pictures. His ability to see through camouflage made him a valuable person who flew over enemy sites and reviewed Recon photos.

When Bill returned to his native Indianapolis after the war, he renewed his interest in the 500. He served as an Official Scorer for 26 years. However, his main interest was taking pictures of the cars.

Every year Bill would walk the pits and Gasoline Alley looking for a car that he had not taken a picture of. He took a small amount of pictures each year, but he made a large effort to take one picture of every car entered.

Bill loved all the cars. He was always interested in the obscure entries. He would much rather get a good shot of a car that only made a few practice laps than he would of the winning car. Heck, you can find pictures of the winning cars everywhere, right?

Bill made his own yearbooks with a picture of each car and details of its history at the track that year. I looked through all of the books. Some of them several times. They are great.

Bill catalogued his negatives and had his own dark room for a while. His memory of the details of the cars was astounding and he would frequently be asked to send a picture and any notes he could add to someone who owned a vintage racer or, possibly, just had an interest in a certain car. Bill loved doing that.

Bill kept an annual history of each car. As you know, before modern technology, the cars could be competitive for several years and sometimes were entered even after their competitiveness was questionable. Each year Bill would write down the “new” cars that were entered and then make a note of where last years cars were on this years entry list. Bill had a spread sheet with several years of car histories. He showed me a Miller that was entered more than 10 times.

After I met Bill in 1992 we found that we shared similar interests. In the mid-nineties Bill and I put a book together that chronicled every roadster that had ever been entered at the Speedway. We wrote notes about each car’s annual history and used Bill’s pictures to show the progression of each car. I didn’t try hard enough to get it published and when the one publisher we were working with indicated that he wanted to use other peoples pictures, the idea of was dropped. I still have the book and all of the pictures we planned to use and now it is fun to keep adding details to the text as I find them.

Our friend died in the week after his 78th birthday. He left behind his wife, one daughter, one grandson and three great-grandchildren along with several friends who have been interested in the 500 since before they were twelve. The First Turn Gang will always have a void.

Bill loved catching a shot of an obscure entry. I'm sure these two pictures were good moments for Bill in 1962. The number 92 W.R.D. Spl. practiced by Johnny Coy and the number 94 Speed Enterprises Spl. driven by Jim Hennings of North Vernon, Indiana.