I started out with piranha 1500 and 1900 packs and honestly they were enough to get me hooked on RC. They perform good but the runtime is less. Now I have a duratrax 3300 nimh pack, and it's been good to me too. One important thing to note is that a nimh pack will require a more expensive 'peak charger'. For the cheaper nicad sport packs you can use a less expensive timer charger.