On Fire Field it doesn't really matter too much how you're driving the first lap, as what's important is that you collect enough sparks to do the skyway on lap 2. So if I'm not at the front at the starting grid, I usually turn around and take the dash-plate to get up to max speed quickly. Stingray then has the benefit of being able to do a wall-hit at the S-turn to maintain a lot of its speed through that section, so you end up catching up to the rest of the field pretty quickly if done well.