K B, If you have the standard black box , the limit is 9,600 or 9,700 and you are hitting the limiter now, being new to racing and I am sure that as your skills improve so will your speed. That was a good point about riding the limiter and shaking your motor to pieces. Me personally, if you are that concerned with either breaking the motor or the ignition and if you have the money ?? put the red box in, leave the gears where they are and then check the recall on your tach at the end of the run. You can run these motors up to 10,500 and not blow them up. But this way you can get a few extra r's out of it and not worry about breaking the ignition and after you keep track of your top rpm it will let you decide if your going to change gears. In my opinion this gives you wiggle room in either direction.But there are many people on here with more knowledge than I have.
Brett