Our first is in a month also (Smokin on the Bay in MD) and I've been reading -tons- of good info here. Our first timed full practice is tomorrow/Sun (assuming I can find a decent brisket in this area.. sigh..)
Practice, practice, practice and practice some more. Write
everything down. Exact recipes, times, temps, wood (how much and when), until you can do it exactly the same every time. I've got close to a dozen variants on our chicken recipe, as we adjusted it at each cook to get it to what we wanted; if it works we can do it again, and if it doesn't we can adjust it without guessing. (Take tasting notes too - if the judge says "not sweet enough", maybe you have a variant already tested that is sweeter..)
The extra practice also lets anyone on the team fill in in any seat - not only is it all written down, but they've done it in practices..
Search around the forums here - lots of teams have posted VERY helpful threads and tips on getting started, and there are also a lot of packing/checklists available to use as a base. (Things you might not think to bring - for example, one local team recommended the "just-add-water" bag-style fly traps, set up away from the prep/living areas to keep flies out.)
Figure out how long your different meats take (warm, prep, cook, rest, prepare, box) and count backwards from turn-in. Then add a fudge factor (not enough to let it get cold if everything goes well, but enough to deal with "why won't the stupid pork come up to temp??") and print up the schedule.
On our practices, we've been focussing on 2 meats at a time with no hard turn-ins up till now, to get a feel for recipes, timing and get faster at the various prep stages. This weekend will be our first full 4-meat cook with hard "turn-in" times and actual boxes (I'll post pics Sun/Mon if they come out ok
..) and we've got 2 more "light" practices and 1 more full-on run (off-site, to verify our packing lists) before the competition.