That is sort of like the story that a US magazine writer/racer Jess Thomas wrote about campaigning a Velo in the Daytona 200 in the '60's. One of the front runners told him that he lapped Jess so many times that he thought there was a whole Velo team there.
I had similar experience with Ducati 750 SSs, thought I was being lapped every 3 laps, until 2 came past together - there were 6 in the HST.
H