Racing all out is a different ball game - for certian!
the drag racers here started -- years back -- filling the water passages with metal - running solid blocks - -
also running LOTS of fuel helps control temps . waaaay back the local hot shoe -ran Ford flathead blocks with ARDUN heads which routed the gasses out of the block and got a few runs at a time before th wimpy Ford 3 main block blew up. this was -- 50 years ago - I was running a modified Ford Flathead and could not make anywhre near that power as it simply could not breath like the hemi ohv setup.
I fixed that - went to a FI head 283 Chev-setup