Yes, I know the clutch bearings stop spinning after the clutch engages. That's why I understood your thrust-bushing setup would actually work pretty well. Since you mention it, that also means your point about high-revving engines is immaterial. Even if your clutch is tuned to engage at 30,000rpm, how often does it disengage once the race has begun and your car is moving? Only a few times, so the wear on the clutch bearings will be minimal even without lubrication. And at those high RPMs, any lubrication you use will be flung-off very quickly, so the bearings will be running almost completely dry anyway.

I don't buy cheap Chinese bearings. The ceramic bearings I buy tend to cost 8-10 dollars apiece. Because of that cost, I only use them in places where steel bearings have failed previously, and the clutch is one of those places. I'm sure they are manufactured overseas, but they are good enough that I've never had one fail.

I agree, INA (a subsidiary of FAG, which is a very unfortunate acronym in English) makes excellent bearings. All of the one-way bearings in my entire RC fleet are INA brand. They are very overpriced though, as most European industrial products are.

I still think that buying cheap bearings and throwing them away after every race is the same as reformatting your computer every week. I knew someone who did that, because he couldn't tolerate even a tiny decrease in performance. He eventually went crazy and had to be taken to a psychiatric hospital. I don't know what happened to him after that.