If you weren't stuck on exactly 1/10 scale, you could do a CRT.5. :) Lower it a little and put some street tires on it and it would be a bad little machine. The construction is well built and uses 8th scale setup and some parts.
Then again, it probably would exceed your budget - but not by much...
i would like to do one Brian because i love the platform. But it will be i little to much work (even though it is not much) for me because i want something i can just build and drop a Brushless in. I also wanted to run cells and i don't think i can fit some cells in the .5. maybe if i could do minimal mods drop in a mm and a custom 6cell pack and i would be half way simple without going over about 550 i might do it but probably not this time. I think i will come back to that project i am just looking for something fast and reliable to do right away to get racing. thanks anyway.