Noose in Bubba Wallace's garage 'was real', NASCAR releases pic after FBI says it was a 'door pull-down rope'
NASCAR, on Thursday, June 25, released a picture of the suspected "noose" found in race car diver Bubba Wallace's garage stall at Talladega on Sunday, June 21, declaring that "the noose was real". The incident was investigated by the FBI for possible hate crime before they revealed that the "noose" was a garage door pull-down rope that was in place for nearly a year.
The pictures released by NASCAR show a long rope fashioned into a loop, however, with one end of it coiled around the knot. The images released by the company "have a striking resemblance to a noose. NASCAR, along with the FBI, on Monday, June 22, had launched an investigation into the matter and had revealed that a white driver, Paul Menard, had also used the rope previously in the same stall in 2019.
US Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent Johnnie Sharp Jr, in a statement, said that no one could have known that Wallace would be assigned that specific stall before last weekend's race. Reports state that circuit officials, during their investigation, questioned representatives from every NASCAR track to learn to inquire how many garage door pull-down ropes were tied in a similar manner. They found out that out of the 1,684 stalls across 29 tracks, only 11 had knotted pull-down ropes, and just one of them had been fashioned into a noose — the one in Wallace's stall, NASCAR.com stated. It is not yet clear who tied the rope in the fashion of a noose.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps, in a statement released on Thursday, attempted to explain its decision to report the rope to the FBI as a "noose." Phelps said: "Upon learning of and seeing the noose, our initial reaction was to protect our driver. We're living in a highly charged and emotional time. What we saw was a symbol of hate and was only present in one area of the garage and that was of the 43 car of Bubba Wallace."
"In hindsight, I should have used the word "alleged" in our statement," the company president added. "As you can see from the photo, the noose was real, as was our concern for Bubba. With similar emotion, others across our industry and our media stood up to defend the NASCAR family – our NASCAR family – because they are part of the NASCAR family too. We were proud to see so many stand up for what's right."
Wallace, who had faced criticism over the misunderstanding, stated that he was "relieved" that the rope was not intended as a racist threat. Wallace was not the person who found and reported the "noose" to the company or the FBI. "I think we'll gladly take a little embarrassment over what the alternatives could have been," he said.
The race car driver, while talking to NBC, said that he was suspicious that the "noose" was in fact a garage door pull-down rope and that made him look for others to see if they were also tied in a similar manner. "When I did find out, I was adamant about searching all the other garages and making sure that this wasn't a garage pull, and it ended up being one," he told the outlet.
Wallace, when saw the pictures of the rope, was reportedly certain that it was a "noose." While talking to CNN, he said: "The photo evidence that I've seen, that I have in my possession, of what was in our garage, is exactly a garage pull, it is, that is a noose. I don't know when we get to the point to release that image, but anybody sees it, it's alerting and it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up for sure."