NASCAR and the FBI determined on Tuesday that the noose that was found hanging in the racing garage of Bubba Wallace at Talladega had been there previously, but Wallace still seems to believe it was a symbol of racism.
Wallace spoke with CNN’s Don Lemon about the findings of the investigation, and he said he did not see the rope but was shown photos of it. The 26-year-old seemed annoyed that officials called it a garage pull and not a noose.
After FBI & NASCAR closed case on possible hate crime, driver Bubba Wallace says rope found in his garage was a “straight up noose.”
“What I saw hanging in my garage was not a garage pull. — never seen anything like it.”
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 24, 2020
“The image that I have and I have seen of what was hanging in my garage is not a garage pull,” Wallace said. “I’ve been racing all my life. We’ve raced out of hundreds of garages that never had garage pulls like that. People that want to call it a garage pull and put up old photos and videos of knots as their evidence, go ahead. From the evidence we have and that I have, it’s a straight up noose. The FBI has stated it was a noose over and over again. NASCAR leadership has stated it was a noose. I can confirm that. I actually got evidence of what was hanging in my garage, over my car, around my pit crew guys, to confirm it was a noose.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I talked to my crew chief about it … I wanted to make sure we weren’t jumping the gun. I said, ‘This isn’t just a regular old knot, right?’ This isn’t just something that can be done in a second. This is something that took time.”
Wallace was then asked if he feels the noose was tied to send a message to him. He acknowledged that it may have been tied in 2019 but stressed that it was an actual noose, not a typical knot. Some old photos of the garage pull surfaced that did appear to show it was tied in a noose, though there has been no indication of why someone chose that particular knot.
While the FBI has closed its case and determined no federal crime was committed, NASCAR is still looking into the garage to figure out why the pull rope was tied into a noose. Although evidence shows the noose was not intended as a message for Wallace, the driver still called it a “despicable act of racism.” Other drivers and their crews pushed Wallace’s car down pit road on Monday in an emotional show of support.
