Stay away from pull start. The added weight and hassle aren't worth it. You are much better off with a starter box. As soon as you break the recoil once you'll know why. It sounds like a nice feature but in reality it's probably what drive alot of newer people out of nitro. Plus once you get the engine flooded its pain. A starter box will save your knuckles, trust me. IMO the losi is hard to beat. To this day the 8ight is one of the best performers out there. Not to mention the availability of parts and the cost of parts is heavily in Losi's favor. The nice thing is if you decide to get the truggy down the road many of the same parts will fit both units. The rtr is nice because you get a solid rc and tx. The starter box will need to be upgraded pretty quickly but the stock one will work fine for now. You can upgrade the chassis and the rest of the buggy part by part for cheap and in the course of a month or two have a race roller built. Plus parts on eBay are a dime a dozen and there's plenty of setup guides to get you pointed in the right direction. Overall IMO you'll be much, much happier with the losi. Keep in mind the stock servos are weak and will need to be changed out within the first couple of weeks. It's better to change them out when they still work and keep them as backups than to have them die during a race or practice session.