umamimon

Okay, here are my intentions...

I live near a university campus with alot of paths and alot of grass, I have an electric (FT TC3) but unfortunatly, grass would kill it O_o And I wanted to try out nitros anyways (even though people said it was alot of work) So I decided a few things... please correct me if im mistaken.....

1) If i want to run on rally-ish surfaces like pebbly asphalt and grass I would want a sealed drive train and a shaft drive.

2) Running on grass would be okay for a Nitro powered car since there is no ESC to fry and you dont need to worry about battery amp draw

With that being said, I narrowed it down to:

HPI Type SS
HPI Super Nitro Rally
Kyosho TR-15 Rally

I want to stay below the 300 dollar price range and I want a new kit so I think Im limited to these few. Many people badmouth the HPI kits saying they are crappy but im not going to be doing any racing or whatnot. I read that the SS goes up to 45 or so MPH and i think thats pretty damn good =) But Im torn between these cars and I have a few questions:

1) Is the Type SS okay to run on grass and bumpy asphalt? I mean, If i jack the car up high with suspension settings and get rally tires, wouldnt I have simply a fast version of the Super nitro Rally?

2) I see that even though the SS has a sealed shaft drivetrain, the two speed transmission gears are exposed. Now Im NOT going to be running on dirt tracks or anything like that. Im worried about rocks gettign stuck and tearing up the gears. Is this likely to happen? I mean people say this is an OK parkinglot racer and parking lots are bound to have rocks and debris....

3) How is the Kyosho? Im feeling iffy about this car because parts seem to be scarce but if its a good car Im all for it. It got a good review on RC car action. What do you people think???

Im leaning towards the Type SS right now since it has a better engine than the SNR and more horsepower. The setup seems better too. Is the SNR more durable or somthing? As far as I can tell I cant seem to find a single perk in getting the SNR over the SS..... please... sombody help me out

oh yeah.... lastly, I KNOW THERE ARE BETTER CARS THAN THESE. I hear much good stuff about Mugens... NTC3's... and thats great and all.... but im NOT going to be racing... I just want to bash around the school and HPI seems to have alot of part avalibility in case I break somthing. So i dont need some super road racer... I just wanna make an informed buy... my price range is definitly under 300 bucks.... prolly more around 250-300

thanks a bunch!
-Lawrence