![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Bernie-Ecclestone.jpg\" "\\"Bernie-Ecclestone\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut when did it start?<\/p>\n
Forty years ago next Monday, I reckon.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Even our esteemed Continental Correspondent Denis Jenkinson could not have known the full implication of his observations when he wrote: \u201cOne advertiser or publicity machine can be quite pleasant, two can offer amusement, but when the whole lot pour in with only one thing in mind, to swamp any rivals, the whole business becomes confused, sordid and in the worst taste.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole place seemed to have exploded with advertising drum-beating and publicity gimmicks that was all so tremendous that you had to search to find a simple and honest Grand Prix car.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not far off the situation that will call for more acres to be provided for the \u2018Trade Fair\u2019 than are required for the actual racetrack. When that happens I think we shall have to stop and start all over again with a clearer mind, for there seems no way of stopping the present trend; the reputed money shortage only seems to have aggravated the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
That \u2018present trend\u2019 included \u201cteams outdoing each other with the size of their transporters\u201d, \u201chospitality units on even larger chassis\u201d and \u201cmotorhomes as big as a single-decker bus\u201d.<\/p>\n
And where was this Sodom?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At a new autodrome bereft of character, history and tradition \u2013 and which today provides the access roads of a workaday industrial estate with easy motorway access and the sort of hotel beloved by Lenny Henry.<\/p>\n
Nivelles-Baulers, near Brussels, put the infamy in the track-designing career of John Hugenholtz of Suzuka fame.<\/p>\n
To be fair to the Dutchman who also penned Zolder, Jarama and California\u2019s Ontario Motor Speedway (demolished in 1980), he was working with one loop tied behind his back.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s masterminds had boasted about its scale before acquiring a necessary second plot of land \u2013 and could not afford its inflated price as a result.<\/p>\n
(The sort of error Bernie would never make.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thus the proposed one-mile southern loop \u2013 and conjoined oval \u2013 had to be binned and the Belgian Grand Prix was twice held on a ho-hum, 2.3-mile, nine-corner layout originally conceived for testing purposes only.<\/p>\n
Denied its \u2018full glory\u2019, Nivelles stood no chance in comparison with the majestic old Spa-Francorchamps it \u2018replaced\u2019.<\/p>\n
Not that it helped itself. That building-site air was never dispelled. Its hosting of the North Sea Trophy hardly warmed the cockles. And the cover of the official programme for its 1972 GP was possibly the dullest in Formula 1 history.<\/p>\n
The irony was not lost when Jackie Stewart<\/a>, architect of F1\u2019s safety-minded retreat from super-fast Spa, missed Nivelles\u2019 greatest day because of a flaring stomach ulcer.<\/p>\nReturn to Nivelles, 1974<\/h2>\n