Maria Leaf
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON– NASCAR President Steve Phelps has released a photo from Talladega Superspeedway. It comes as the racing organization completed its own investigation into the noose found in the stall of Bubba Wallace.
“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,” Phelps said. “In hindsight, I should have used the word ‘alleged’ in our statement.
NEWS: NASCAR completes investigation into No. 43 garage stall at Talladega.
Details: https://t.co/y8rtGKPIog pic.twitter.com/VFLNNNh4CF
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 25, 2020
“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.”
Phelps says NASCAR officials then asked each track to check all the garage stalls as part of the investigation and found that of the 1,684 garage stalls at 29 tracks, ” NASCAR found only 11 total that had a pull-down rope tied in a knot and only one noose — the one discovered Sunday in the No. 43 garage stall.”
On Wednesday, federal authorities announced the rope found hanging in Wallace’s garage at Talladega was not a hate crime. Video evidence shows the rope had been hanging from a garage door at the Alabama track since at least October. Wallace coincidentally was assigned that garage recently.
Copyright 2020 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. PHOTO: NASCAR
