As for street tires, i see people making two big mistakes.
1) A huge John Force style smokey burnout is NOT NECESSARY. All you're doing is wasting your tires. Drive AROUND the water box, don't even back into it, stay out of the water completely, and just before you stage drop the clutch and spin the tires for a second or two just to clean them off and that's IT.
2) Don't let a bunch of air out like you do with slicks or drag radials...leave them at the proper air pressure. When you let the air out, you cause the tire to flatten out at the sidewall, but the actual contact patch of the tire concaves up/inward towards the rim and you actually lose contact patch, resulting in less traction. In the opposite way you don't want them over inflated either, stick with the manufacturer's recommended psi.
Beyond that, try being really gentile coming out in 1st until you get moving and then ease into it, and when you hit 2nd don't immediately mash the gas, ease into it. That might sound like an easy way to be slow but it's faster than spinning tires. A fast ET is all about forward momentum, and when your tires are spinning you're not moving even as fast as you would be if you were easing out the clutch.