LINCOLN, Ala. (WIAT) — NASCAR released a photo Thursday of the noose-shaped pull rope found in NASCAR No. 43 driver Bubba Wallace’s garage at the Talladega Superspeedway.
Wallace’s team members alerted him to the apparent noose and reported the incident on Sunday, June 21.
Wallace had told CNN in an interview on Tuesday, “What was hanging in my garage is not a garage pull…Whether tied in 2019 or whatever, it was a noose. So, it wasn’t directed at me but somebody tied a noose. That’s what I’m saying.”
[RELATED: ‘I wanted to show whoever it was, you’re not going to take away my smile,’ Bubba Wallace said]
The FBI said Tuesday the pull rope in Wallace’s assigned garage had been there since as early as October 2019. They concluded after numerous interviews that no federal crimes had been committed.
In a statement following the investigation the FBI said, “The decision not to pursue federal charges is proper after reviewing all available facts and all applicable federal laws. We offer our thanks to NASCAR, Mr. Wallace, and everyone who cooperated with this investigation.”
NASCAR President Steve Phelps said in response to the FBI’s findings, “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 are proud to see so many stand up for what’s right.”
According to NASCAR, during a recent sweep of their 1,684 garage stalls, only 11 had a pull-down rope tied in a knot, and of those, only the one found in Wallace’s garage had been fashioned in a noose.
Bubba Wallace is NASCAR’s only Black driver.
