99% of the people buying "ultra-supreme matched batteries" are kidding themselves. Especially so if they're racing these Minis. The first time they brush the wall they more than offset what marginal (and I mean WEE marginal) advantage they thought they were buying. Mike Blackstock could beat me with my own car if we put a different compound tire on each corner AND gave him a battery pack made up of random cells, one of which had vented. And I'm not a half-bad driver.

LiPo's won't make it "mainstream" in RC cars for a at least a couple years yet. And when they do you can BET they'll require a hard case ala Orion. We had a fellow (semi-pro RC helicopter pilot) playing around with them in his 1/12 car last year here. Decided to "strongly discourage" that. My feeling on the unprotected cells is they're too easy to puncture in a hard crash, and if you wouldn't willingly spill it on your wife's new living room carpet we sure as hell don't want you spilling it on our race carpet!!

Scottrik