I've glanced through their forums, but haven't browsed the Toy Town Site. Normally, I hit up Hayes Hobby House in Fayetteville. They usually don't have but 1 or 2 buggies in stock (usually the 8ight, RC8b, or Hyper when they do), but can get just about whatever I ask for. They usually have most of the buggy parts I'd need. If not, they can usually have them there in about 3 days or so.

I know I'll have to practice to get good. I plan on practice and don't expect to do good right away. I do agree that the best equipment doesn't necessarily mean guaranteed success. However, in my experience, it makes it more difficult to keep the car together and learn the right way to do things with the cheaper stuff. When I was racing ETC with my Associated TC3 (slightly upgraded RTR version), I couldn't even keep the darn thing in trim. I'd get it as close as possible to trimmed as I could, but as soon as I'd even just brush the PVC pipe barrier, it would knock the dang thing waaaay off leading to more and more mishaps with the barrier as the race drug on (servo centering, loose steering to begin with, etc...). Other times my batteries would give out 4 minutes in to a 5 minute heat (on 3200mah NiMh packs). Yes, I did cycle my packs each weekend before the race and discharged my packs on a discharger before recharging them. That's one reason I prefer nitro, no pack to worry about dropping off before the end of the heat. Just fuel, start, and go. Every time I took the car out, I had to re-trim the throttle 'cause the ESC would set itself somewhere different on each startup. I was spending my entire racing budget just to barely keep the car running each weekend. I understand mishaps do happen. Fix it and move on. However, having those mishaps that could potentially take me out of the rest of the day on EVERY run, then taking an hour to fix for the next run got old quick.

Thanks again for all of the advice all.

Shannon