Yeah my wife started with a Traxxas Nitro Sport.....one month later we built her an RC8B....the thing with traxxas is the first time you crash it hard they seem to break a lot more parts and pieces than a quality buggy does. She has literally cartwheeled her RC8 down the street and never put a scratch on it. The Sport pretty much fell apart on any impact.
Moral is you get what you pay for....if you buy a $250 dollar car you don't get much. The other down side is if you hate it you'll have a hard time getting your money back out of it. I personally would stick to something 4WD for nitro....they handle better and are way easier to control, make driving them a bit more fun