I need pointers!!
They have a progressive tree, so I'll try the last amber trick. How about what to do when I'm staged? Do I just hold the brake with one foot and hit the go pedal when it's time or should I be giving it some gas and foot braking it at the same time? I don't have any lock or such. Just two feet.
1st thing is don't forget to let off the brake! You may be just a bit nervous your first pass, but you'll calm down with experience. Kinda depends on your motor and converter combination. Suggest you let the converter 'flash' on your 1st pass to see what it does, then modify your leave from there.
Are you running any type of pinion snubber?
You can also play with your timing to see what your engine really likes performance wise(just don't forget to reset it for the drive back home).
One more thing - if you drive around the water, make sure you're lined up straight down the strip and your wheels are pointed straight ahead. Stop and back up a bit to make sure, but not far enough to get into the water if don't want to do a burnout. Don't need you to be making a hard turn either left or right 'cause your steering's not centered. If you drive through the water, stop and do a burnout to both clean and heat up your tires for better traction. Depends on the rules for street tires at your strip.
Just before staging, pop the tranny into neutral and rev the engine to clean your plugs good.
Pre-stage slow, stage even slower to just make the 'stage' bulb flicker. A 'shallow' stage will give you more rollout room to help prevent a red-light if you're bracket racing. It also lets you leave just a hair sooner to get that momentum going.
Let us all know how you did.