Racing in the pro class I would not recommend pre staging with any boost. The person in the other lane will wait to pre-stage and burn you down. What I do (and to each their own), is to prestage at an idle, until the person in the other lane turns on their top bulb (pre-stage). I then build my launch boost (usually 17psi), and then stage. In the pro class it's pretty much a given that the track will have "auto-start" on and courtesy staging will be enforced. Which means that both racers must have their pre-stage bulbs on, before either one fully stages. Once one racer has fully staged the other one has 10 seconds to stage (different classes have different time limits).
So the two basic scenarios are:
1. You are both pre-staged, you build boost and stage. The most you would have to wait on boost is 10 seconds before the tree comes down.
2. You are both pre-staged, and the car in the other lane immediately stages. You have 10 seconds to build boost and stage.
Practice building boost before you go to the track. Make sure you can build your launch boost and stage in 10 seconds. Adjust how you have your truck setup, or how you are building boost so you can do this in your sleep.
Being the slower truck is an advantage with how long you will wait on boost, because you will get to leave first. If you are much faster than the other guy, you will be sitting holding boost longer.
As Jacob said, don't bump into the stage light, ease into it. Don't hold the brake any harder then you have to while building boost. Again practice.
Just a personal preference don't use ceramic brake pads. They take heat to make them work. Not much heat while building boost...
The division 7 bracket finals at Woodburn are at the end of August. While I don't like everything about the track, they are well organized, and the track is well prepped. It's been a quite a few years since I have raced at Renegade. I had lots of fun. Do they still have a lot of goatheads in the pits?
I think I have raced at every track in division 7...
I hope this helps...
Paul