You can get a motor hot by being undergeared as you basically have the motor high revving most of the time. Anytime I see someone basically cruising down the straight at like full throttle after only 1/4 of the straight I cringe as I remember being that guy and wondering why my motors were hot till I got word from the late Big Jim, one of the premier motor guys prior to his passing, to use that method.

That is why in general I use the end of straight top out method for classes where I don't use timing to adjust gearing. Some of that can also depend on if the motor can pull the gearing too. This is why on my old SC10 4x4 I couldn't do that method with my 540 4 pole 4000kv motor. it just got too hot and benefited from smaller pinion combined with alittle timing at the higher RPM ranges.

But, in general for stuff like 1/8 buggy, that gearing suggestion hasn't failed me at all.