NASCAR: Bubba Wallace admits reaction ‘kind of looks bad’

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace admitted that the initial reaction to the reports of a noose being found in his garage stall “kind of looks bad”.

NASCAR’s report from Sunday night that a noose had been found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace, the lone African-American Cup Series driver, struck fear into the hearts of many.

NASCAR called it a “heinous act” and Wallace himself described it as a “despicable act of racism and hatred” in the midst of times when racial tensions are high in the United States.

As it turns out, no hate crime was committed. The FBI launched an investigation into the rope in question and determined that it had been there since at least the race at the track last October. NASCAR’s statement confirmed that it was a simple garage pull rope fashioned like a noose.

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Nobody could have anticipated that it would be Wallace’s #43 Richard Petty Motorsports team that ended up getting that particular garage stall this time around, especially considering the fact that this was a race that had been rescheduled from Sunday, April 26 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This race at the four-turn, 2.66-mile (4.281-kilometer) high-banked oval one Lincoln, Alabama was postponed until Monday due to rain, and the drivers were all made aware of the suspected noose before it began. As a result, they rallied behind Wallace and pushed his #43 Chevrolet to the front of the field before the engines were fired.

Wallace was in tears.

“I feel like there’s a ton of support. We’ve seen everyone come together on Monday there,” Wallace told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview on Tuesday evening. “That was one of the coolest things that I’ve ever been able to be a part of. Not saying that I wanted that, but the drivers wanted that. They wanted to show support of me.”

But now, given the fact that there was no hate crime committed against him, which he admitted in this interview with Lemon after previously calling people “simple-minded” for questioning what may have gone on, he has stated that this reaction “kind of looks bad”.

“Now it kind of looks bad,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t because within their hearts, they know that it is something that they want to stand up for.”

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Fortunately, what the drivers stood up for prevailed in that there was never a hate crime committed, and while they may have jumped the gun, NASCAR taking the report seriously and getting the FBI involved led to that conclusion being unearthed in a timely manner.

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