Arriving at Goodwood Friday?

[Deleted]

First off, HotWire if you were hoping to keep this section of the forum clean for official stuff then please don't even hesitate to delete this thread. This just seemed like the obvious place to put my question.

So... RRG. The greatness draws closer.

I live fairly local but I know what a beast the A27 can be heading east at busy times. Given my car will need to be gently teased there with a suspected cooling issue, I am planning on setting out very very early on the Friday morning before the business traffic starts, and then hanging around fairly close by to Goodwood until the site is due to open at 3pm. Might be a pub or maybe just a park/car park somewhere in the vicinity. To give you an idea... I'm about 30 miles away, it opens at 3pm, but Ill be setting out at 5am to be in the general vicinity by 7am when the bottlenecks begin.

So I was wondering if anybody else was likely to be arriving on the Friday earlier than 3pm, and whether it might be an idea to see if we can gather a SMALL group of people (keeping out of everybody else's way) to hang out for a few hours before we can enter the site. A bit of an informal social retrorides meet-up.

Anyone got any plans to get there early on Friday?

[The Doctor]

I hit the Dover docks by 9am, so won't be there as early as you are, but hope to be there before 3.

[Deleted]

I doubt you'll arrive insanely early Doc to be honest, but if I work out where I'm going to hang out on Friday day time I'll be sure to let you know just in case you do achieve the miracle of getting across the South of England in a reasonable time.

[The Doctor]

I don't know about the road situation, but i've seen a route past London avoiding the M25, which alone saves me 2 days of travelling

[Deleted]

I can't talk too much about the stretch from Dover to roughly where I am (Brighton) but I can say with certainty that from Brighton area onwards... if you're doing the A27 route you will hit some very frustrating bottle necks around Arundel where wide fast roads decide to become single lane roads very suddenly. I guess you might be doing: A20>M20>M26>A23>A272 and in that case you might miss a few of the bottlenecks out.

You could very well end up at Goodwood by midday if everything goes smoothly though.

I'd recommend stocking up on refreshments just in case you do get stuck though.

[The Doctor]

Plan was A259 and then A27 (i had to look up what i had planned), so might need to rethink.
M20 is fine mostly, M26 hit and miss in the past 10 years i've done the RR trips, and the less said about the M25, the better Record so far is a 5+ hour traffic jam on a friday a couple of years ago.

[fr€$h&m1nt¥]

If you leave at 5am I reckon you could push the scim 40 miles and get there for 3pm!

Or is this group of select to gather to help push it over the line?

I’m leaving at 12ish but eta is 4pm ish as I stick to A roads in the Acty and have scheduled stops every 40 miles to stretch my back and let the truck chill for 10 minutes before continuing.

[Deleted]

Edit: My post was way too long. I am clearly experiencing withdrawal symptoms from resting my own progress thread.

Fresh&Minty if you do happen to arrive earlier I'll let you know where I am bit it sounds unlikely you'll be there before the site opens.

[marky2202]

Not 100 percent sure if there's any parking restrictions (ie time limit), but your best bet is probably the supermarket car park at the arrow on the map (off the tiny little roundabout) as they have a big car park, food and drink, toilets and fuel garage.
Also just along the red dual-carriageway bit is a Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The southern-most part of Goodwood circuit is at the top of this map

[marky2202]

Other options are good sized lay-bys on the A27 south of the lake and on the yellow dual-carriageway to the west of the lake. Usually a burger-wagon open at each one and plenty of truckers to talk to (o:

[Deleted]

There's a really nice country pub if you turn left off the A27 heading east, just before you hit Goodwood. It has a really big car park and is in the middle of farming country.

I'm going to try and re-find it on Google maps and possibly head for that if it's open.

But it might be a good idea to have the supermarket as a rendezvous for people who aren't arriving at 7am like I'm planning to!

[Deleted]

Apr 30, 2018 18:20:14 GMT The Doctor said:

Plan was A259 and then A27 (i had to look up what i had planned), so might need to rethink.
M20 is fine mostly, M26 hit and miss in the past 10 years i've done the RR trips, and the less said about the M25, the better Record so far is a 5+ hour traffic jam on a friday a couple of years ago.

A259  on a Friday should be fine. It's a pretty windey road favoured by motorcyclists at the weekend to launch themselves into a ditch,of which there are  many,as it's a marsh....🤔
Probably a more sure and steady route than the M20/M25..More scenic too...

[GavinJ]

Apr 30, 2018 21:56:20 GMT fr€$h&m1nt¥ said:

If you leave at 5am I reckon you could push the scim 40 miles and get there for 3pm!

Or is this group of select to gather to help push it over the line?

I’m leaving at 12ish but eta is 4pm ish as I stick to A roads in the Acty and have scheduled stops every 40 miles to stretch my back and let the truck chill for 10 minutes before continuing.

My mg is currently having cooling issues (overheated on recent trip to Nuneaton so very nervous about getting all the way to goodwood!!) so a steady run is in order I'm Ws7 postcode and think your pretty local? Could I tag along!?

[fr€$h&m1nt¥]

May 1, 2018 12:28:24 GMT GavinJ said:

Apr 30, 2018 21:56:20 GMT fr€$h&m1nt¥ said:

If you leave at 5am I reckon you could push the scim 40 miles and get there for 3pm!

Or is this group of select to gather to help push it over the line?

I’m leaving at 12ish but eta is 4pm ish as I stick to A roads in the Acty and have scheduled stops every 40 miles to stretch my back and let the truck chill for 10 minutes before continuing.

My mg is currently having cooling issues (overheated on recent trip to Nuneaton so very nervous about getting all the way to goodwood!!) so a steady run is in order I'm Ws7 postcode and think your pretty local? Could I tag along!?

Yeah no problem if you don’t mind going slow. The truck peaks at about 50mph and even then I panic about making it alive!

Current plan is roughly ...

Cannock to Kilsby > 49 miles
Kilsby to wytham > 49 miles
Wytham to Whitchurch > 43 miles
Whitchurch to Goodwood > 47 miles

En route places just plucked from google maps but heads through new forest

[Frankenhealey]

Le Convoi Exceptionnel de Frankenhealey (Goddess, Healey, Pitstop's 2CV) will be in the area on Friday afternoon. We are heading straight along the A27 between 2 and 3 o'clock to get to our accommodation a half mile from the circuit. If you see a broken down big red truck then the unwritten rule (until now) is that you have to stop to give assistance. I reckon if we rope all your cars together we may have enough ooooomph to pull me into the circuit car park .

Once we are at base camp I expect we will mosey over to the camp ground to check over who managed to get there.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2018 13:14:00 GMT Frankenhealey said:

If you see a broken down big red truck then the unwritten rule is that you have to Honk your horn and wave cheerfully as you go trundling past with steam billowing out of your radiator

[Deleted]

May 1, 2018 12:28:24 GMT GavinJ said:

Apr 30, 2018 21:56:20 GMT fr€$h&m1nt¥ said:

If you leave at 5am I reckon you could push the scim 40 miles and get there for 3pm!

Or is this group of select to gather to help push it over the line?

I’m leaving at 12ish but eta is 4pm ish as I stick to A roads in the Acty and have scheduled stops every 40 miles to stretch my back and let the truck chill for 10 minutes before continuing.

My mg is currently having cooling issues (overheated on recent trip to Nuneaton so very nervous about getting all the way to goodwood!!) so a steady run is in order I'm Ws7 postcode and think your pretty local? Could I tag along!?

I'm still weighing up whether or not to run the risk of trying to cure my increase in engine bay temperature on the day before RRG.

On the one hand it would be achievable in one day to go and buy lots of coolant and some flush (and some tubs to drain all the coolant into) and to then refill and burp the system the day before I leave.

On the other hand, two years of experience with this car leaves me in no doubt of the possibility of a very simple thing being complicated by an unexpected deviation from normality... such as discovering the radiator's petcock is actually a toothpaste lid held in with Bostik carpet glue, and once I've pulled it out I'll have absolutely no chance of ever sealing the hole again.

When I factor in that a coolant flush out might not be the thing that resolves it anyway, and that it could be any number of things going on not yet investigated... I'm inclined to think I'm going to hold off 'fixing' it until afterwards, and risk it. It's not very bad... it's just definitely on the temp increase tip in non-ideal circumstances.

I do love it though... not all of us but many of us like these old cars for their allusions to a bygone era of power, speed, sporting prowess, head-butting horizons and gobbling up roads in a savage feeding frenzy.

As soon as a gathering happens, we're all tip-toing daintily and fearfully along the hard shoulder, unsure whether we'll actually get there or not.

[reliantreviver]

I passed a considerable que back on the opposite side of the carriageway of the M1 on Sunday. At the front of it on the hardshouler - an AA van with the beacons whirling. Behind that a long and low yank pick-up with the "hood" up. Beyond that was over half a dozen assorted modified vehicles loitering on the hard shoulder.

Note to self. AVOID the South of England this weekend! Not implying anything but...

[Deleted]

May 1, 2018 13:43:05 GMT reliantreviver said:

I passed a considerable que back on the opposite side of the carriageway of the M1 on Sunday. At the front of it on the hardshouler - an AA van with the beacons whirling. Behind that a long and low yank pick-up with the "hood" up. Beyond that was over half a dozen assorted modified vehicles loitering on the hard shoulder.

Note to self. AVOID the South of England this weekend! Not implying anything but...

Yep, exactly. No sense in not being sensible. It can be RUDDY MURDER on the streets down y'er.

[Frankenhealey]

Apr 30, 2018 23:11:56 GMT marky2202 said:

Not 100 percent sure if there's any parking restrictions (ie time limit), but your best bet is probably the supermarket car park at the arrow on the map (off the tiny little roundabout) as they have a big car park, food and drink, toilets and fuel garage.
Also just along the red dual-carriageway bit is a Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The southern-most part of Goodwood circuit is at the top of this map

Here is the Goddess in that very Pizza Hut/MacDonalds car park after the infamous A27 (we woz on the BBC!) tyre blowout.



How to recognise the Goddess in it's special VIP lane. You will meet a sort of semi-rolling roadblock. As you get further up the queue you will see a red speck on the horizon, this means you have many miles of people anxious the get past the Land Leviathan but as they pull level they all slow down to see what's occurring. After cursing those people for many miles you will do exactly the same thing. I will be the bloke in the cab having a larf.