© John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
On Thursday, NASCAR released a photo of the noose that was hung in Bubba Wallace’s garage at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. It came four days after NASCAR president Steve Phelps informed Wallace, the only Black full-time driver on the circuit, that a hate crime had occurred, following the postponement of Sunday’s race.
NASCAR just released a photo of the garage pull rope that was fashioned into a noose at Talladega. pic.twitter.com/gRAUAJoYv2
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) June 25, 2020
Wallace condemned the act on Twitter that night and received an outpouring of support leading up to and through the race the following day, in which he finished 13th. On Tuesday, the FBI investigated the noose, finding that Wallace was not the victim of a hate crime because the noose had been there since October of 2019.
“The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week,” the FBI said in a statement. “The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019. Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week.”
Any image search will render hundreds of images of an identical type of knot, which is associated with hangings and lynchings. While that type of knot is functional and did serve as a door pulley, it was the only knot of that kind in any garage on the grid, hence why it was reported to NASCAR by Wallace’s mechanic, David Cropps, who first saw the noose and examined the remaining garages to see if any others had the same rope with noose used as door pulleys.
“[Crops] saw that other garage pulls were basically just a solid piece of rope, no knots in them, and we have a knot that’s in the shape of a noose,” Wallace said on “First Take.”
Wallace expressed frustration at the sentiment that, due to the FBI’s review, Cropps’ reporting of the noose was viewed as a hoax. Again, that report from Cropps came after he went to every other garage, finding that only Wallace’s had a noose in it.
NASCAR confirmed that on a much larger scale, finding that of 1,684 garage stalls, Wallace’s was the sole one with a noose hanging in it.
NASCAR president Steve Phelps says NASCAR conducted a "thorough sweep of all 29 tracks where they race, and 1684 garage stalls, they found only 11 total ropes that had a pulldown rope tied in a knot, and just one noose: The one in Bubba Wallace garage."
— Marty Smith (@MartySmithESPN) June 25, 2020
Wallace put out the following statement on Wednesday morning.
— Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) June 24, 2020