RX8 fried - help a noob please

A little background: This is my first attemp at BL. I've been reading up since Jan, so I have a pretty good base, but it's still my first try. I just finished converting a brand new XXL to BL. The truck has an Aftershock tranny(forward only), single speed hub, taller than stock tranny gears, and no brakes. I'm running a RX8 1350kv setup on 6s 30C Zippy. It's geared for around 46mph now, I may drop that down. In case it matters, it's all wired together with 10awg wire. It's not my first time soldering so I'm pretty confident the connections are all good.

RX8 settings: I'm not 100% sure, but brakes were ~20%, throttle profile was set for least sensitive, set cutoff to 6s, forward/ delay brake/ reverse and thats about it i think.

I got the truck together the other day and tested it out in the basement.(10x10ft room) I drove it around on and off, probably 5 min total. I was on slippery concrete floor and and hit the throttle a little. There was a small pop or two, but I couldn't tell if it was the ESC or something else and then all the ESC lights were dead. :( Checked out the battery and it was dead too, one of the tabs was fried.

Repaired the tab and the battery checks out fine. Hooked up the ESC to an 8.4v NiMh pack and it lit up and appeared to work, but I didn't drive anywhere. So, I hooked up my LiPo again...instant pop, plume of smoke and 4-5" flames. NOTE: the ESC was switched off when I plugged it in.

Does it sound like I'm doing something wrong?(ok, so maybe I should have thought twice before hookin up the 6s again) Will the ESC blow up if there isn't enough current? I'm not real sure what I did to make it blow up in the first place.