print start without filament

I recently switched to Sli3r for my MendelMax and Pronterface integration. It prints better and faster than skeinforge except that it does this long countdown before a print starts and that is making all the filament ooze out of the extruder prior to print start.
How can I fix this?

I use both slicers interchangeably, and there is no difference between wait times. The only waiting they do is waiting for the bed and hot end to reach temperature. Once the hot end reaches temp, there is an 8 second countdown that is done by the firmware, so it affects both slicers.

I personally never hit the print button until both have reached temperature. As they reach temperature, I extrude a bit of filament just to make sure that the hot end is primed, then I hit print. Once I hit print, my start gcode moves the hot end to the front edge of the build platform at a z height of 0.5. This helps to prevent oozing, even though it's only for 8 seconds.

Even with all of this, the first few millimeters of extrusion aren't perfect - which is why I have skirt turned on.

look at the start gcode generated. probably want to change that.

temp needs to stabilize before print begins, so also in start gcode there likely is a temp that is different than what you start your printer at.