Well, since you mentioned "leveling experience," Barbarians and Iksars get the best newbie zones out of the options. The Feerrott and Innothule kinda suck. Some people hate Everfrost, but I think it's kinda nice, and you can do a quest for free patchwork armor. Also, you have the Initiate Tribunal quest for a free neck and magic weapon, and you can run the first stage of that quest over and over for the first few levels if you prefer to do that instead of kill things.
But you also start next to Qeynos with the OP gnoll fang and rabid pelt quests, which will net you a lot of exp and money until you get SoW. Then you can travel anywhere and do whatever normal leveling route as anyone else.
Field of Bone has the curscale quest along with many others, and it's also one of the best if not the best place(s) to start in, and there's some really nice natural progression up to Kurn's and other Kunark leveling spots.
As far as the race itself, as always play what you think is the most fun. Ogres have the best stats and are melee stun immune from the front which is really nice, so they're most likely the best option. Trolls have second best stats and regen. Iksar have the worst stats and can't use plate, however they're actually a bit nicer leveling up since they have access to some gear that large races don't (sebilite scale and kylong for example). This stuff tends to be very cheap for how nice it is. But yeah, no JB BP or JBB clickies, ever. This will always be a hindrance but slightly less so in Velious.
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