Sorry. I'm an idiot. I meant
thrust bearing.
^ When shutting down there is pressure on the
thrust bearing, but the engine reduces RPM, losing oil pressure. Not as a bad as starting the car with the clutch in, but still not great, especially if you are repeating it thousands of times.
The
thrust bearing wear due to clutch-in starts is a well known issue with Saturns. Not super common, but much more common than other cars. Many disable the clutch switch in order to prevent it. The thrust bearing flange on the Saturn is only 180deg. Some owners modify it to cover 360 deg when rebuilding.
My recommendation for a different method would be to kill the motor in neutral - this way as the engine spools down there is no thrust load. Shift back into 5th to get the car going again.