I plan to put some screen over the side holes, which is actually the air exit. The air is drawn thru the hollow rotor from slots in the rear endbell and is exhausted thru the large side slots that you can see the fan thru. I may have to remove the fins to fit the beasty!
As far as high pole count motors go, they usually start very well. I run a fair number of outrunners in crawler and dtd apps and they do fine. The rotor is not very long, so I am hoping the high pole count and large rotor diameter will make up for that. Active rotor cooling will not hurt either!