It will go really well, its driver skill that keeps you in the pack, we used to run ours with 12 & 10 turn motors, it was fast enough (did move to 5.5 brushless & lipo). Make sure the tyres & shocks are good thats half the battle, the ZX5 is easy to drive.
Remember that you could run on one set of lipo for a meeting, you may need a few sets of nimh. lower weight is a big advantage with lipo, put a strip of lead under the lipo to make weight up, but it then has a lower centre of gravity.
This would be a good motor if your esc can run it:
http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50054