Bubba Wallace was not the victim of a hate crime at Talladega Superspeedway over the weekend, the FBI says.
A Richard Petty Motorsports worker found a rope in Wallace’s garage on Sunday and informed NASCAR, which contacted the FBI.
The FBI sent 15 agents to track the investigation. They determined that the rope hanging in the garage was a pull rope and not a noose. The pull rope had been in place in the No. 4 garage since at least October.
#nascarnoose solved. These images are all from the garages at Talladega SuperSpeedway.
Image 1 shows rope “nooses” are affixed to every garage bay door as a pull down.
Image 2 shows Bubba’s bay 4 in Nov. 2019.
Image 3 is of bay 4 after the incident. Notice the rope is cut. pic.twitter.com/2rHdSdgtOo
— James (@JamesEBeatty) June 23, 2020
Additionally, the FBI says Wallace’s car was randomly assigned the No. 4 garage and there was no way to know Wallace would be intentionally assigned to one that had a pull rope.
Even though the rope was not a noose nor placed in the garage as part of a hate crime, Wallace still interpreted the rope’s presence as a personal message and wrote on social media that it was a “despicable act of racism.” Drivers pushed Wallace’s car to the front on Monday in an emotional display.
Wallace has successfully lobbied for the banning of Confederate flags at NASCAR races. The 26-year-old is the only full-time black driver on NASCAR’s top three series.
