When new to eletric racing, I would say you don't need that great of packs to start with. When I started racing electric (Had raced 1/8th scale Nitro for a while before) I found a couple guys at the track that each sold me a couple old 3300 matched packs for $10-$15 bucks a piece, and for under $50 had 4 battery packs that worked really well. Used them for practice and qualifying then used the good IB3800 matched pack I bought for the main.