Helms Family Blog: 2016

As some of you know, we are big fans of Audi in my family. We have had 5 different Audi cars and I am currently driving an Audi S5 convertible. The S5 is getting some miles on it (almost 100,000) and I wanted to get a car I could drive every day, stop driving the S5 and put it in the garage (to drive on the weekends). I have been looking at all kinds of cars. But nothing I drove was particularly exciting. I was talking myself into just buying something I would be OK driving, but did not love.

As a bit of background. I have always loved sports cars. When I was in high school I had a poster of a white Lamborghini Countach on my wall. It was my dream car. I remember doing the math to calculate how much I would need to make to afford that car, assuming I lived in a small apartment and spent all my disposable income on the car. I planned out my entire budget - taxes, food, rent, and insurance.

Fast forward a few years to 2007. Audi released the R8. I thought it was a beautiful combination of styling and performance. It had the performance of an Italian super car (think Lamborghini and Ferrari) but was made by Audi (a German automaker with dealerships all around). In my mind, it was the best sports car one could buy (under $1M). This was my new dream car. I knew exactly what I wanted. A dark blue R8 with a carbon fiber blade and black interior. (What I did not know at the time was that in 1998, Lamborghini was sold to the Volkswagen Group and placed under the control of Audi. The R8 was actually a collaboration between Audi and Lamborghini. In fact, the R8 is built on the Lamborghini Gallardo platform.) As fans of the movies will know, this is the car Tony Stark drives in the Iron Man movies - https://news.marvel.com/movies/78/the_evolution_of_tony_starks_awesome_audi_cars/

Back to December 2016. I am still looking for cars. I was fairly close to buying a blue Audi S4. Then a BMW X6. Then a Audi A6. Then a Porsche Panamera. I did not really love any of them. In fact, I liked my current car better than all of them (except maybe the Panamera). I did not need a new car so I started to just think I would continue driving my car and just wait until next year. That is until, last weekend when a did a random search at Cars.com and saw a blue Audi R8 with a carbon fiber blade and black interior. If money was no object, this was literally the car I have wanted for the past 9 years (but never thought I would actually consider purchasing). The car was in Chicago. I was so conflicted. This was a car I was certainly excited about and it was a great deal, but (1) it was more money than I wanted to spend and (2) this is not exactly a car I can drive everyday.

The next day (Monday) I called the dealership to see if the car was still available. The salesman said it was available but one other customer was also inquiring about the car. Late that night Misty and I went to bed and we were discussing if I should, at a minimum, fly to Chicago and look at it. At about 10:30 pm I purchased 2 tickets for Shawn Jr and I to fly to Chicago. We got up at 4:30 am, drove to the airport and were in the air to Chicago before 7:00 am on Tuesday morning. We landed in Chicago and took an Uber to the dealership. It was 10:30 am.

This dealership, Ultimo Motors (http://www.ultimomotors.com/) is crazy. As you will see in the pictures below, this place is loaded with high performance sports cars.

The salesman took me to the Audi R8. It was as advertised. In near perfect shape for a used car. I took it for a test drive and loved it (despite the fact that I fishtailed it around my first corner). It was a bit hard to drive at low speeds but had a certain magic to it. It was like driving a go-cart that has a top end speed of 187 MPH. Because it is an Audi the interior was simple and familiar. It felt like my current car - just cooler. I was sold.

We purchased the car and Jr. and I decided to drive it back to Dallas. That's right, 1,000 miles and 15 hours. I drove the first day and night. The drive was fine with only one scary incident. We were cruising along the highway and I saw a softball size rock in the middle of the road. All other cars are just rolling right over the top of it but I knew this car did not have enough ground clearance. I could not avoid hitting it. As we rolled over the rock it made a loud sound as it hit the front and went underneath. We could actually feel the car lift up a bit as it rolled under the car. Shawn Jr and I were both worried it had caused significant damage. We kept going but stopped to assess the damage at the next gas station. Unbelievably there was no noticeable damage. Crisis averted. We stopped near Memphis, Tennessee and slept for the night. Shawn Jr. drove all of day 2 and did a terrific job handling the car. After 2 days Jr. and I arrived back in Heath at around 4:00. We got the car washed and drove home. At around 4:30 on Wednesday I arrived home with my dream car.

Below are some pictures of the car.

Now I just need to figure out what car I am going to drive everyday...

This is the storage in the front. The bag in the bottom is my laptop bag. Certainly not much room in this thing. Not exactly a car you can take on a shopping trip.

This is a picture from our first gas stop. As you can see, the gas tank sits high on the car. The entire car is only 48 inches high. I was surprised that the car has a rather large 21 gallon tank.

The Rockwall-Heath High School volleyball team had another terrific year. They finished the year 33-14 and were undefeated District Champions for the 5th year in a row (14-0 in districts). Noelle had an outstanding year. She was the starting setter on varsity and led the team and district in assists and serving aces.

Below are some pictures from the season.

Team picture from program.

Noelle's individual picture.

This is a picture of the 3 Juniors from the program - Kayla Cook, Berkley Adams and Noelle Helms.

Here is a picture of those same 3 girls - Kayla (#5), Berk (#3) and Noelle (#13) from their very first club volleyball team - Impact - when they were in the 6th grade.