Just got back from the Drag races last night.. bah! Input please?

Ok, I ran at the local street drags last night and it was definitely a lesson in learning. I seemed to have a hell of a time hooking up at launch and as the evening progressed, it seems that it got worse and worse for me. Ultimately i would try dropping the clutch at 2200-3000 rpm (tried different strategies) and ultimately i would just sit and spin while the other cars would take off, once i hooked up then it would be a game of could i catch up to them before the quarter mile ran out. Very fricken lame.. /images/graemlins/angry.gif I was running kumho 17's on the rear and they were definitely picking up all kinds of rocks and crap on them.. i am wondering if I was not heating the tires up enough prior to running. as the night progressed it would feel like my tires were dipped in grease when i tried to take off.. even low rpm launches and i would sit there and spin the first 10-20 feet before the tires would grab.. I would say that 90% of the cars there would get the jump on me off the line because of this.. sometimes a Serious jump to the point where i could not catch em.
My second gripe is that it seems as soon as my tranny heated up it became EXTREMELY hard to shift gears.. anyone know what the cause of this?? I am gonna have my gear oil changed out first thing this next week. I know once the tranny cooled down i was able to shift fine again.. I'm assuming that this shifting issue is not normal. Btw, my tire pressure was about 22 lbs
Input??