Straw Bales Wanted Urgently!

[speedsport]

HELP! Our farmer has stopped supplying straw bales for our Aintree events.
Does anyone know where we can buy/hire 160 standard bales for our 3 sprints & 200 bales for our 2 track days in 2008?

They will need to be delivered to Aintree on the Saturday morning of each event at 7am, dropped off at a dozen locations around the track for us to position, and then collected again after each event at 5.15pm.
ALTERNATIVELY:-
We have located a local farm (2 miles away) that has offered to supply the bales, but they don't have transport.
Does anyone know of a local HGV owner/driver who can assist? They will need a reasonable length flatbed wagon/curtainsider, and preferably some experience of loading bales as they are not the most stable of loads. They would need to consider arranging additional labour to load up at the farm the previous afternoon/evening (without LMC help) and again to help re-load the wagon at Aintree after each event.

Anyone got any ideas? First event 26 April, so time's running out!

[vanny]

have asked one of the local farmers and he has no spare bales. There are still a good 700 bales at my farm that have been bought (for not a lot of money) and i'm quite sure a deal could be negotiated for some or more of them (the guy who bought them lives in mid west wales and its a 4 hour drive to get to liverpool). They are conveniently located at the other end of the M57!

I guess a box truck or curtain truck would get them shifted, perhaps two runs. It may be possible to store the bales at the farm for THIS season, but its due to get rented out again come next summer.

There is an arctic trailer at the farm that needs to be got rid off, would be ideal for storage but i'm not sure Aintree would be very keen on it? have HUGE side opening doors as it was converted for shows etc

If you want i can probably sort you out a number for the owner of the bales, if nothing else i'm sure he'd rent them out!

[speedsport]

With impeccable timing, we've been contacted this evening by a local farmer who will satisfy all our bales requirements for 2008, deliver to Aintree & collect again after each meeting. Slight price increase compared with previous supplier, but not excessively so.

Many thanks Vanny for your offer but (at last) we are finally sorted for this season.