Looks fun. All my old Florida long board buddies are up there chasing waves. They're the beer belly grey haired guys in the surfer van..and an Escalade.
Yes the braking speed, rotational speed, and others are adjusted in the FLY app. You might want to play around with the settings before your next expedition, tune it to your liking. Sounds like your present setup is for filming video where slower...
That is assuming you are in an area where you have cell service - if you do, you are fine, but if you don't you are kind of out of luck - I learned the hard way.
Don't always need to login to your home wifi, you can set up a wifi Hotspot in the field with your phone. Of course it helps if you fly with a different device than that phone.
Have you updated your FlySafe database? GEO has been removed and you should be able to self-authorize flying anywhere, whether legal to fly there or not.