I rediscovered similar at the big dog this weekend just past. Through the tight single track, I had a mate about 40 yards in front of me and thought if I really went for it I could catch him. I overshot most of the corners, missed most of the lines, expended more effort by overbraking and reaccelerating and got to the next fire road section 60 yards behind.
Next time I kept it under control, flowed through the turns, took far less effort and based on garmin analyses of the laps, was a few seconds faster.
Slow is steady, steady is fast.
(Of course, the quick boys definition of slow and steady is also somewhat different to mine)