Congrats on making some runs. This is the start, just keep learning from the past runs & and make adjustments as necessary. And if you are planning to run gas, and there's not a thing wrong with that, then a quality and efficient cooling system is wise and necessary investment. While I so far only run the 1/8 mile, my coolant temperatures don't go past 190*. The exception is that our local track allows for 2 runs in the first time trial session so I make a pass, drive it back to the staging lanes, sits for maybe 5 minutes while cooling, then make the second pass and the car just reaches 205*.
