If you play the same race 100 times you'll eventually win. It will be sweet, but most probably it will be luck and it'll take 100 more races to do it again. If you're not in a hurry for a Platinum or something I don't understand why you would jump straight to Elite. I prefer to take my time and slowly learn the game. I'm not lying myself that I'm a god for beating the game on Novice. I know that there are two more difficulties after that.
Everyone has his own way I guess. When I started playing Pulse, I started on Elite, but I already had experience in HD/Fury. For someone absolutely new in this type of game, I think Novice is a must.