I did a beer league in '98 at Shawnee Peak.... on a Factory Prime, Langes, and TD1s Can you say pain? The ruts were leg-snapping crazy. So crazy that I would take a really stupid line just to avoid them. Part of this was because the races would start at 4pm, and I couldn't get out of work and on the hill until 6:30 or 7. By then the course was shagged rotten. Some people took it very seriously - speed suits, armor, power bars, blood doping, etc, and they would be on the course at 4. Others would run the course half in the bag.
So I guess my point is that if you're not going to be on the course early, you will probably want to invest in some Sidewinders and/or a Boiler or Donek plate.
Some differences between freecarving and racing - in racing the primary goal is to get to the bottom the fastest (duh), but that means the first thought in your head needs to be to finish the race without falling or missing a gate or pulling the e-brake. So this means not necessarily carving every turn, and preserving balance above all else. And <s> if </s> when you do fall, get up, hop back up to the race line, and finish your run anyway. Even if that means taking 10 seconds to hop uphill to go around a gate the right way. If you give up and just go down the hill without completing the race you are DQ, your night is wasted, and your season standings take a big hit.
Then when you can start thinking about going faster, a general rule of running gates is that you want to start your turn early and be passing the gate in the bottom half of your turn. Sometimes that's not the case, like in a flush or other circumstances, but it's a good rule of thumb. I'm no racer though.