I watched a number of videos since this post and was really surprised by how the X275 cars, for example, were doing just what you described above. Some of them are lifting the front wheels, but just barely, and carry them down track a ways before they come back down really smoothly.

That's in complete contrast to what you'll see from a lot of fast Stock Eliminator cars that still pull the fronts waaaaay up before they drop back down to earth. I wonder if that approach to tuning for radials (275/60 or 9 x 30) would translate well, if the Stocker guys tried it. Or maybe a Stocker's weight distribution and other chassis limitations still require a good bit of pitch rotation to get off the line consistently.