I too can imagine it's from revving too high, but it may be a combination of the track .ini and my poor setup skills after running a few more tests last night and early this morning.
@Tom Barber, as for the gauges, I'm not overly familiar with reading the gauges, because I play on a small monitor, but I know the temp gauge was lighting up red, despite me guiding it into the corners, not racing the wheels off. I was trying to run free of a car in front of me to gain clean air and get cool air into the engine, but that was to no avail.
@Bill1947 I currently have grill tape set to 55%, should this be lower for a race? I experimented with 50%, and got the car to last almost the full 14 lap distance (I only get a little time here and there to play/test, so I play 10% distance. I'm sure it's overrevving, but I can't keep pace with anyone without doing so.
I also ran a test race by non-starting, and with the track ini as it was, the leaders were turning laps faster than what got Brad K the pole this past year. They were sitting at 193.xxx as a speed for the race, which is incredible. The fastest lap turned in the race this past year was 185.xxx from Larson, so I dropped A.I. Grip. They still run a bit higher in speed, but it's more manageable now. The results were also more spread out. In the other tests, the leader and 10th were separated by less than 3 seconds. I was able to contend better, but my engine still gave out. Perhaps my gear differentials are messed up? I did play with them, but the car was either deadweight out of a corner, or topping out halfway down the backstretch. Perhaps I'm reaching a high rev too soon and over the course of the run, my engine just can't keep up with the heat?
