If you would like to wait til November, Ofna is supposedly 'shipping' their Hyper 9 then. There have been many delays to this car, but it's probably due to testing and tweaking.
the Hyper 9 is being raced in top level racing such as the Ifmar 08 Worlds.
Not too sure about the price either.
Right now, I have a Losi 8ight but I'm passing it on to my little nephew to jump into 8th scale racing and I'm looking at picking up a Hyper 9 or Mugen MBX6