Launching a high horse power car with street tires is an art form, and as you stated there is no replacement for practice.
If you have street tires smoking them before the run is not going to help, but lowering the pressure will help the tires bite, somewhere around 20-25 PSI, but your going to have to test which pressure works best for your car and tire combo, for the track conditions on the day you run.
As for better traction and times on the bay bridge...what kind of surface is it (i.e. concrete, blacktop, etc.)? The incline may be messing with the acceloromoter so I would not trust those times, but I wouldn't erase them either!
