NASCAR released the clearest photo on Thursday of the garage pull rope that was mistaken for a noose in the garage of Bubba Wallace, NASCAR's only Black driver in the Cup Series, prior to the GEICO 500 at Talladega. The image shows the rope tied into what could be interpreted as a noose.
After an investigation from the FBI and NASCAR, it was found that no hate crime that had been committed against Wallace when the rope was originally found. Wallace went on CNN afterwards to assert that regardless of whether it was something intended for him or not, the rope was still a noose.
According to Wallace's retelling of the incident, NASCAR president Steve Phelps was the first to inform the No. 43 driver that this was found in his garage. The rope itself was reportedly found by a staffer, who reported it to the proper authorities.
In a press conference given Thursday, Phelps pointed out that no other garage had anything similar to the type of knot that was tied at the end of Wallace's garage rope. He also apologized using poor word choice in NASCAR's initial statement following the finding of the noose.
Around the time that the noose was found in Wallace's garage, protestors were driving outside of Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama protesting NASCAR's decision to ban the confederate flag at all future events. A plane even flew above the track with the phrase "Defund NASCAR" over the confederate flag on a banner. during the race. This was less than a week after Wallace had driven a Black Lives Matter scheme car at Martinsville.
NASCAR inspected 1,684 garage stalls at all 29 tracks in which they race. They found only 11 garages that had a pull-down rope tied in a knot, and only one noose - the one in Bubba Wallace's garage.https://t.co/b648rQ2EDv
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 25, 2020
Source: CBS Sports
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