I'm glad that you are seeing results.
Just know that using race results isn't a good way to determine if you are faster or slower. How you place depends on who showed up that day and how they were feeling, all of which is outside of your control.
One steady thing you can watch is your warmups. I would know if I'm gonna have a good day if my numbers during my full-gas wamup efforts were higher than normal.
BTW, I'm also in the "cleat back" club. For years, I had my cleat forward or in the middle area. Moved them backwards (and adjusted my saddle to compensate) and hit PRs on the power meter and ergo. I didn't get to see if it would translate into PRs on the track due to several truncated seasons in a row. But, early-season numbers were great.