Yeah, when people are working hard and trying hard, they can go off easily. It almost takes a conscious effort by me to not try too hard, to maintain some degree of balance, while I'm out there. It's getting easier for me as the years go on, I'm taking it all less and less seriously.
I had one bad incident last year with that flag walker guy Sumner mentioned. I was pushing the bike to impound for a tear-down. The bodywork was off already, the bike didn't appear complete at all. I had to go past the staging lines on my way, and when I go within about 50 feet of them, Mr. flag cop starts hollering at me asking whether I was long or short or RWB. I was panting and didn't want to yell back so I waited until I got up to him, then said "impound" as I pushed it by him. Well, then he thought it was his job to tell me where impound was, and he runs in front of me and points to where everyone is staged for backup runs.
I ignored him and turned the bike into the tear-down area where we already had our tarp and tools set up, parked it, and started focusing on the task at hand. He came over to me and started chewing me out for not following his directions. I tried to explain to him that he was trying to send me to the wrong place and I knew where I was going and didn't need his help. He kept bitching at me, I got pissed, and gave him a royal ass chewing and told him where he could go. He threatened to have me thrown out, I told him to have it it just get the Fiat out of my face. Nothing ever came of it, though. That asshole better just stay away from me this year. He was entirely too full of himself, thought that special "security" pass made him some kind of a god.
We're all there to have a good time. People will, by and large, follow directions and cooperate when they're asked, I think very few people intentionally want to cause issues. Officials should assume as much and treat the racers properly. And 99.9% do. That guy has no business being there.
