Great info from Rico and others above.

Chris, a track racing “career” (even for us local guys) is a long road. You’ll have a lot of time and opportunities to experiment...and you should definitely experiment. Don’t sweat the details like gearing and whether you are ready for big gears. That’s like a new basketball player talking about “which dunks should I practice?”. There is so much before the fine tuning of personal gear options come into play. At this point, big gears may actually make you slower and less competitive in your local beginner races (scratch, points, miss-n-out, time trials, etc), which can be demoralizing.

Never underestimate how good winning a beginner 5 lap scratch feels for a new racer. Feels damn good!!

I suggest that you cut your teeth on “normal” gears then move to big gears when the time is right.

The number 1 thing that will make you faster faster is simply showing up at the track and riding and racing your bike as much as possible. When you aren’t doing that, watch the other races going on. Help out keeping score. Learn how to ring the bell. I bet that advice would hold up for a new BMX racer, too