North West/West Mids? Friday Meeting Point. M42.

[ezzyrs]

An ideal meeting point for RR goers travelling on the Friday from the North West/West Mids has been identified as Hopwood Services on Jn2 M42.

I am aware that people may be travelling from the northern part of the North West and I would like to get a general feeling of what the earliest time you could hit Hopwood Services would be. This would enable us to have as many as possible, at the most popular time for the majority.

From the Hopwood Services it is about a 30-45 minute drive along the M40 to Gaydon, then beers and BBQ. ;D

Briandamaged can also give you detailed information about the final leg to Gaydon.

Interested parties, let us know what time you can make it to the Services.

[Raoul Duke]

I wouldn't really want to try getting there much before 8:30. But then I am (probably) the furthest away!

EDIT: aha, Friday. Must learn to read posts properly...

[briandamaged]

A few things to consider:

It's a Friday afternoon. In August. Which means the motorways are going to be insanely busy. And what's more the service areas will be chock-a-block with holidaymakers, too. So we really don't want to outstay our welcome, so the later we can arrange convoys, meetups etc for, the better.

Remember also that there's generally a 2 hour limit on parking at Service Areas these days before they start demanding a king's ransom.

Gaydon is 26 miles from Hopwood MSA, so realistically it's half an hour's cruising if the M42/M40 are clear.

For these reasons, I would want to start amassing at Hopwood about 3pm with an eye to leaving there at 5, arriving at Gaydon by 5.45pm. That would give everyone travelling up from the South West and down from the North West plenty of time to get themselves organised.

At the end of the day I'll happily go with what people want, with the proviso that I don't finish work until 1.30pm so it will be 3pm before I get to Hopwood even though from home it's only 5 minutes away!!

[Nathan]

You could meet up with us East north east RR'ers then?

[briandamaged]

Jun 30, 2008 18:02:18 GMT Nathan said:

You could meet up with us East north east RR'ers then?

That would ROCK!!!

Imagine two lines of Retros coming from the M42 down both slips onto the M40, and merging together...

Wouldn't take too much hassle to arrange, Hopwood's about 5 miles from the M42/M40 interchange......

[Nathan]

We kinda had that last year, was at least 15-20 cars.

Hopwood services sounds good to me, just gotta set a time and I will sort out the other meet around that.

[ezzyrs]

Jun 29, 2008 21:27:32 GMT @briandamaged said:

A few things to consider:

It's a Friday afternoon. In August. Which means the motorways are going to be insanely busy. And what's more the service areas will be chock-a-block with holidaymakers, too. So we really don't want to outstay our welcome, so the later we can arrange convoys, meetups etc for, the better.

Remember also that there's generally a 2 hour limit on parking at Service Areas these days before they start demanding a king's ransom.

Gaydon is 26 miles from Hopwood MSA, so realistically it's half an hour's cruising if the M42/M40 are clear.

For these reasons, I would want to start amassing at Hopwood about 3pm with an eye to leaving there at 5, arriving at Gaydon by 5.45pm. That would give everyone travelling up from the South West and down from the North West plenty of time to get themselves organised.

At the end of the day I'll happily go with what people want, with the proviso that I don't finish work until 1.30pm so it will be 3pm before I get to Hopwood even though from home it's only 5 minutes away!!

The Shropshire lot may have been through Hopwood by 3pm and the Motorways will still be busy at 5pm (then you get the travel from work traffic).
Looks like we will be leaving earlier, maybe at Hopwood for about 12 noon, then move on to Gaydon to set up Camp.

See how it goes closer to the time.........