Yes, high gear always. This how we do burn-outs, and why; I have our driver pull thru the water box, and just out of the water, enough so the tires are still wet and stop, [stopping will make for a better smokey B-O], until I give him the signal to go. Be carefull there is no water after the water box, ie stop out of the wet, but hopefully with the tires still wet. Don't burn-out past the tree, and get out of the throttle if the tires hook up, it's not so good for the converter to dead hook the slicks. If one of the reasons for the B-O is to heat up the tires, a long B-O will cool the tires coming back. I look for burn-out tire temps to be at least 10°+ above the track temp, that's why the B-O tire temp as we are backing up will vary. One thing I do is use a kids sidewall chalk to mark [X] on the B-O track, so we will be alot more consistant backing up in the B-O track, and we back up almost to the wet, so if we don't get the car on the mark [X] I can give him the signal on how much to move over, as his his pulling into the stage beams. Also the driver has enough room to test the transbrake as he's coming up to the stage beams.
Another thing I have used is when the track is HOT, like over 130°, make shorter B-O, & I have him back-up next to the B-O tracks, the track is already too hot. Which means I line-up the B-O off center of the grove.
I hope this Helps,
Jon