> Back in the real world, no race team would agree that their cars should disintegrate after one race.

Wasn't F1 teams basically doing this by replacing their engines and transmissions until the rules introduced penalties for component swaps in 2014?

If you go back further than that, teams used to destroy entire engines for a single qualifying.

The BMW turbocharged M12/M13 that was used in the mid-eighties put out about 1,400 horsepower at 60 PSI of boost pressure, but it may have been even more than that because there was no dyno at the time capable of testing it.

They would literally weld the wastegate shut for qualifying, and it would last for about 2-3 laps: outlap, possibly warmup lap, qualifying time lap, inlap.

After which the engine was basically unusable, and so they'd put in a new one for the race.

Yup, cigarette money enabled all kinds of shenanigans. Engine swaps for qualification, new engines every race, spare third cars, it goes on. 2004 was the first year that specified engines must last the entire race weekend and introduced penalties for swaps.

Even today F1 teams are allowed 4 engine replacements before taking a grid place penalty, and those penalties still show up regularly enough. So nobody is making "reliable" F1 engines.

You can see this really on display with the AMG ONE. It's a "production" car using an F1 engine that requires a rebuild every 31,000 miles.

Don't highly optimized drag racers do this? I mean, a clutch that in normal operation gets heated until it glows can't be very durable.