yeah if you don't have a peak charger than don't buy nimh, buy a charger first. As for a motor the quad mag is supposedly awesome and is a very popular choice. The $60 checkpoint is a bit expensive limiting your battery budget. For batteries I would get these:
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXCUH3&P=ML
they are a very popular choice among bashers and I own 2 sets of em. They don't have amazing punch or runtime but it will deliver over 15 minutes of runtime in a pede. (I run em in my emaxx and get maybe 10 min) Besides who can deny the great price?