No. We're all fast.

In races, particularly crits, the pack tends to surge out of every corner, so the more speed you can hold through the turn, the less you have to sprint to stay with the back coming out of the turn. If you can keep pedaling farther into the turn before you have to hold the inside pedal up, and start pedaling sooner coming out of the turn, it makes a big difference.

I have,
I think it varies from place to place, and team to team. All of the local Eastern Washington/North Idaho racers I’ve met have been down to earth and friendly. I have definitely noticed in the races that are big enough to draw people in from Seattle, the vibe is completely different. The friendly comments and jokes in the pack during the race, and conversations between strangers while riding back to the staging area from the finish line are replaced by people speaking only in hushed tones to their teammates. It might just be a difference in the cycling cultures in different places that says nothing about the character of the individuals, but I can defiantly see where the snobby elitist impressions people get from cyclists come from.

That doesn't sound like snobbishness to me. It sounds like a race big enough to be a lot of people's 'A' race which is going to be taken more seriously than a local training crit.

I tend to think that most of the "elitist roadie" reputation has more to do with the projections of insecure n00bs than reality.

+1000

It's like the "Why don't they wave??" threads, where I always end up saying that all the bike commuters around here just want to get to work on time instead of waving to every two-wheeled yahoo they see.