Actually wattsy's dreamin might not be too cwazy. Imagine if those clever little Japanese fellas were able to rig a type of 'overdrive' INSIDE the cluster (ahh, remember the days when the dragster was king) that allowed you to split ratios.
Same 10 gear cluster externally, but direct drive and a 1:0.96 INTERNAL slip ratio. It's not impossible to imagine.

Back soon, I'm just off to the patent office...