jr2k1983

im also new to drifting, i purchased the brushless driftstar and absolutely love it, my friend has a madspeed car and mainly they have different chassis and parts, with the driftstar the parts that fit exceed's champion (non drift) model also work on the driftstar, they do not work on the madspeed, which means that all the aluminum upgrades that are offered for the car cannot be purchased later, the car will drift on plenty of surfaces with the ABS tires that come with it (even carpet), although i didnt like the way they look so i changed my tires over to regular rubber/resin compound drifts, i would HIGHLY recommend the brushless because it is about 150% as fast as the regular and brushless motors are usually more reliable anyway, i know that the driftstar with brushless option and 1800mah battery will run for 20-30 minutes on a charge, and a 3000mah should run for about 30-45 minutes (mah is how much charge a battery can hold, 3000mah runs 2x longer than 1500mah) , and the connector is a common type with one vertical one horizontal connection that i have used other peoples batteries without any adaptors. to get a full charge on a dead battery it takes a while, i never paid attention or timed it but probably at least 3 hours, so i would suggest keeping a few batteries handy. also since you are new i will warn you .....it is an addictive hobby, i got mine on christmas and have bought an extra battery, 3 bodies, 5 sets of wheels, 2 sets of tires and am ordering more this week. any other questions u have post them up and ill try to help. since exceed's forums are not extremely busy (suprised though cause the car is a really nice build from factory)