I'm gonna be perfectly honest. I had the rtr and raced it for about a year before I upgraded anything major except tires(these were titanium turnbuckles only b/c I was bending the stock ones). Most of these guys say, "You have to have all the best parts to go fast." They think every little change will make the car handle completely different. I heard one guy say, "you won't go fast unless you have the +8 chassis" Another guy said, "Oh your wing broke off, You better pull it off because it won't work it if isn't on there" My point is that a new driver won't be able to notice these changes. Just run it and have fun. Don't worry about pouring a bunch of money in it, yet. So run the rtr until you get better. Then if you feel like you want a little more tuning options get the factory team. I'm sorry if this is a rant but some people take these toy cars a too seriously.