Jim, I hope you can at least make it to Diesel Thunder in Spokane. It would be a shame not to use such a well set-up truck; I was thinking how much I need a dedicated race truck, so why don't you just sponsor me and let me pull it behind the Princess for this season...

lol...
Bryan, that hood gauge has been talked about and could help some, but really it's more a matter of steadying the throttle. This is hard when your second turbo (or big half of large single) is trying to kick in. First you're pushing through lag, then you have to ease off, but just enough to keep it from shooting up. Then you've got to creep into the second light, and even with very good brakes it wants to leap forward. You sure develop an ear for RPM...
When racing at truck/diesel events, the starters seem to take all this into account and are forgiving (except at last year's Truckfest in Denver, where the starters seemed to be studying astrology or something

). However, at a points event when running against cars, it's pretty easy to time-out and get an automatic red light. Not to mention that it's very hard to be consistent on where exactly you're staged, therefore totally affecting your R/T's and dial accuracy.
'Course, if it were easy, who'd want to do it? :-laf