NASCAR releases a photo of what was found in the garage stall

NASCAR has released a photo of the garage pull rope fashioned like a noose which was found in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superpseedway.

Following the FBI’s investigation which concluded that there was no hate crime committed against Richard Petty Motorsports’ Bubba Wallace, the lone African-American driver of the NASCAR Cup Series, the sport has released a photo of the rope that caused the confusion at Talladega Superspeedway this past Sunday evening.

This investigation came after NASCAR reported that a “heinous act of racism” had been committed against the driver of the #43 Chevrolet.

NASCAR President Steve Phelps said in a statement that he would have used the word “alleged” in their initial statement about the matter, but also that no other garage stall had a similar looking rope. He has taken responsibility for the tone used in the initial release.

NASCAR, which described the rope as a “garage pull rope fashioned like a noose” in their statement after the FBI unearthed the conclusion that it had been there since the race at the track last October and was not targeted at Wallace, shared this image with the media and included the word “noose” in their description of it.

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Wallace, in his interview with CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night, warned fans of photoshopped images of the rope in question. Now that is no longer a concern because of NASCAR sharing this photograph.

He maintained that what he saw was a noose, although he admitted that he only saw photographic evidence of it, not the object itself, and he clarified that he knows he was not the target of a hate crime as he had once thought. He had previously referred to what happened as a “despicable act of racism and hatred” and called those who questioned what was going on “simple-minded”.

As NASCAR’s image shows and as NASCAR stated, the rope in question was, in fact, a garage pull rope, while at the same time, it does also resemble a noose more so than an average garage pull rope would. The fact that both are true is why we got to this point to begin with, and hopefully now we can move on knowing that nobody committed a crime like many had once speculated.

Notably, this object is, in fact, the same noose-looking garage pull rope that was there in October, when the #21 team of Wood Brothers Racing occupied the same stall. The fact that it was Wallace’s #43 team put in this stall for the most recent race at the track was merely a coincidence, the FBI concluded. Prior to the October race, it was not tied in this manner.