I know this is a dead horse topic, but, consider this.

When you're talking about a ten second car, that would be a slower car at a normal bracket race anymore. Take your 10 sec car and drop the rear gear to be slightly over peak at the stripe in the 8th. Get it working on the line with everything you can throw at it. Lower gearing, more tire, better shocks, whatever you need to plant it. You might find you like a shorter track better when the car plants you harder in the seat.

This way you get to launch, and pull like a much faster car, because you need nothing left for the other half of the track.