BOLDENBURG, Belgium —  Based on historical accounts of Formula One racing, I went to Circuit Zolder for the first time thinking I would find a run-down, backwoods, Mickey Mouse track more suitable for go-karts than serious racing cars.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
Zolder may not have the character and cache of nearby Spa-Francorchamps or the fast corners and long straights of Road America, but it’s superior to 90 percent of the road courses in the United States in most respects. That’s a sad commentary about the amount of respect (and the lack of investment) directed at American road courses.
Prior to the race weekend, I walked the 2.492-mile road course with my colleague David Phillips, and we agreed that Zolder had unfairly gotten a bad rap over the years. It’s not a bad race course, though the Champ Car drivers complained that it was slightly too narrow.
Turn one is a fast left-hander similar to the first corner at Mid-Ohio, and the next three corners are all taken in fourth gear at more than 120 miles per hour. So, the lap gets off to a fast and challenging start.
Drivers complain about chicanes, but the ones at Zolder are better than usual. The first one has the cars exit up a steep hill, and after reaching the crest, they plunge into a flat-out, downhill left-hand sweeper that leads to the Gilles Villeneuve chicane.
Of course, Zolder is most famous as the track where the great Villeneuve was killed on May 8, 1982, while on a qualifying run in his Ferrari 126C2. Phillips and I paused for several minutes to pay respect to GV at the simple monument constructed at the site of his death, and I have to say it is in bad taste that the revised corner has been renamed after Gilles. Knowing Villeneuve’s legend, it’s insulting just to name a chicane after him — he hated them!
After another not-quite-long-enough straightaway, turn 10 is a sharp right-hander, leading the drivers back to the start-finish line via the Jochen Rindt and Jacky Ickx chicanes. The track has been modified and repaved since F-1 last ran at Zolder in 1984, but the Champ cars were considerably faster than expected, running seven seconds faster than Rene Arnoux’s 1984 lap record.
The EuroBoss series for vintage F-1 cars was on the bill at Zolder, and people from that series optimistically believed their cars would be faster than the Champ cars. But the EuroBoss cars failed to break 1 minute, 22 seconds, whereas Sebastien Bourdais took the Champ Car pole in 1:12.8.
Zolder’s biggest problem in the modern world is that it is simply too far from what the F-1 set considers adequate accommodations. Antwerp and Brussels are both more than an hour away, and I can’t imagine Bernie Ecclestone or Ron Dennis trying to navigate their way back to a hotel in Hasselt, the pleasant city where we stayed.
Crowds for the race weekend weren’t massive, but they definitely pleased promoter Bart Rietbergen. He was particularly thrilled with the Friday and Saturday turnout, and it certainly looked like he easily achieved his break-even attendance of 45,000 for the weekend.
The crowd is expected to be much bigger next week at Assen, where more than 45,000 reserved grandstand tickets have already been sold. 
The Dutch are extremely motivated when it comes to supporting their racers, and Robert Doornbos still ranks second in the Champ Car title chase, even if Bourdais seems well on the way to his fourth-consecutive crown.
All in all, Zolder was a very good showcase for the Champ Car World Series. And Assen promises to be even better.