It just seemed to me that the driver wasn't so much concerned with the car becoming a camp fire for everyone to sit around and tell ghost stories as much as he was on setting a pointless point with the track official who seemed to be confused why he would not shut it off. Circumstantial confusion by both and the right words were not exchanged.

Here is the new age part (OLD vs NEW) in play.
Track officials, old schoolers or new, are PROBABLY not yet up to speed that these .com cars could in SOME cases act differently then their dinosaur predecessors. The track official commanded and then demanded that the car be shut off by what he probably assumed would simply be a turn of the ignition key. Well.... the driver most probably tried to shut it off and then when it would not, the track official thought that the driver was being a smart @$$ about it especially when the he finally got out and confrontational while his car sat there begging for help.

On the other hand, perhaps what ever out of house modifications might have been conducted on this car could have bypassed a safety net and triggered some sought of unexpected electronic gremlin that reared its ugly head at the worst moment with no plan B.

I'm old school and can be totally wrong about this, but it's bazar that a transmission control module/sensor/whatever would presumably render a car unresponsive to a shut down. What kind of shade tree tinkering would do such a thing? If there's no what/if/when answer to that, then a MANUAL cut off switch somewhere on the car should be there on the ready as part of that modification.

Plan B people! always B planning for it.

Here is the emotions part in play.
When someone is in such an expensive and complicated car that acts funny for what ever reason, the situation can arouse the stubbornness in the person driving/racing it that can be really embarrassing on the spot. (Kinda like when you're sitting at the light and everyone is giving you the thumbs up while chanting "Light 'em up" and the car stalls or backfires.) Embarrassing indeed.

Forget about blue painters tape to shield the lower quarter panel paint from rubber flash, I would of tried to save that car from the devil no matter what. A true legend in its own time.

In either case the cars bellyache should have been neutralized much faster by the collaboration of both parties and save everyone a headache.