Bubba Wallace.
No name in the NASCAR Cup Series, at least over the past five-plus years, evokes reactions from the average NASCAR fan quite like this one does, when the two words are merely spoken.
Wallace has emerged as one of NASCAR's most polarizing characters, specifically during his time at 23XI Racing. The team co-owned by three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan, which formed in 2021 as a result of an online rumor, made Wallace their first-ever driver, signing him away from Richard Petty Motorsports.
At that time, Wallace had already emerged as one of NASCAR's most hated figures. He was the low-hanging fruit when it came to fans' inevitable quips of "he's only here because..." – you know the rest of the line.
So when Jordan came right out and said "we don't sign checks for losers", it elicited further reactions from the fans already hell-bent on rooting for the No. 23 Toyota to end up in the wall on any given race weekend.
But if not for what happened in June 2020, less than a year after that very driver ironically received an ovation from the crowd for spinning out Kyle Busch at Watkins Glen, it might not have been that way.
NASCAR fans' Bubba Wallace hate based on a lie
Every single driver in the Cup field is, for one reason or another, hated by some fans. That's the nature of the beast. No driver is going to be loved by everybody, no matter what. This isn't any sort of a groundbreaking concept that's exclusive to NASCAR.
The problem with an overwhelming majority of the Wallace hate, even more than five years later, is that it's based on a lie. It's based on a misconception that NASCAR willingly promoted (and the mainstream media willingly sensationalized), all under the guide of "standing behind" Wallace amid an act of racism that never existed.
The saga, which some still call "The Great Noose Hoax", "Fake Noose", you name it, was started on a Sunday night at Talladega Superspeedway: June 21, 2020. The race had been rained out to Monday.
That evening, NASCAR put out a statement, first sending into the media, and then releasing it publicly.
“Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team. We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act. We have launched an immediate investigation, and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport. As we have stated unequivocally, there is no place for racism in NASCAR, and this act only strengthens our resolve to make the sport open and welcoming to all.”
Most NASCAR fans can agree on one thing: this boils our blood to read. But not all in the same way, and that's where the major disconnect is happening. It's why Wallace is still on the receiving end of so much completely unwarranted hate.
At face value, the statement is angering because of what supposedly went down. But as more and more time passed without any hard evidence or additional information regarding the so-called crime, suspicions began to arise. Fans began to wonder if the situation was really what NASCAR said it was, in no uncertain terms.
But any such suspicions were shot down, primarily by the ever-divisive media. No; a crime happened here. You better believe it. And if you don't, you're a racist hack who has no place in this sport.
Ahh, of course. So goes the party line, right?
NASCAR flat-out made an accusation. In what was one of the most racially charged environments in recent history back in the summer of 2020, they stirred the pot without doing any due diligence. They knew exactly what would come of their accusation, and with no evidence whatsoever, they did it anyway.
That is what should boil your blood reading that statement now. And that, in and of itself, has absolutely nothing to do with Bubba Wallace.
FBI confirms no crime committed
As pretty much everybody other than NASCAR and the media expected, no crime was committed. The "noose" was a garage pull rope that had been in that stall for who knows how long, at least since the previous year's October race at the track.
NASCAR made a knee-jerk reaction to one individual's misunderstanding, and instead of simply looking into it (we're not saying they shouldn't have) and confirming the obvious, they turned it into a national story.
Over nothing.
What amazes me, to this day, is how, after the FBI sent those 15 agents to Talladega (and wasted everyone's time in doing so), it took no time at all for Fox Sports' Bob Pockrass to resurface a picture from the October race at the track, with the exact same pull rope, back when the garage stall belonged to Paul Menard and his No. 21 team.
I'm still grateful for Pockrass' transparency here. Because there is no way on earth I believe that absolutely nobody thought of doing this between the time the so-called "noose" was discovered, up until the time NASCAR got through wasting those 15 agents' time. Absolutely no way.
I firmly believe NASCAR wanted the publicity, and that they, plus a chunk of the media, wanted to believe an act of racism was committed. They wanted the clicks and the media engagement and the national praise, especially at a time when accusations of racism were already rampant across the country.
They wanted the "NASCAR" to stand not for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, but for National Association for Stock Car Anti-Racism. They wanted to virtue signal, to pat themselves on the back.
Facts never mattered.
Seeing as how NASCAR was more than happy to soak up the national spotlight after banning the Confederate Flag from race tracks less than two weeks prior, you have to believe they were loving the added publicity, which once again quickly elevated to the national scale. It was a "Look at how not racist we are again!" play if ever we've seen one.
Yea, no kidding. Because no racist act was committed. Just conveniently leave that part out, though, and dismiss anyone who dare suggest it possible that this was all a big nothingburger.
I recall, shortly after the whole thing unfolded, bringing it up to a close friend. He didn't even want to talk about it, and it was obvious that it wasn't because he hated Bubba, but because of the fact that this was the single most mismanaged off-track situation NASCAR has seen in recent history.
There were several members of the media who took to social media to not only dismiss, but to berate, attack, insult, and completely vilify anybody who dared suggest this wasn't a hate crime. There were others who didn't go that far, but still fully fed into the narrative that week, arms raised high to battle an evil that never existed.
Never mind the fact that the whole narrative was made next-to-impossible by the COVID-limited access to the garage to begin with. But again, if you dared bring that up, you risked losing your job or, again, being vilified on social media. Because clearly somebody had to be the villain here. Clearly there was a racist on the loose. Someone had to pay.
Do you really believe it's not exactly what NASCAR wanted?
Unfortunately, all along, it was the very individual they supposedly sought to defend who paid the biggest price. Because NASCAR and the sensationalist, always-divisive media turned Bubba Wallace the victim, a role he never wanted nor embraced.
I have to admit that, yes, in hindsight Wallace going on various talk shows that week to talk about the "noose" (and, like NASCAR, criticize fans who doubted the party line) was not a good look.
But you have to understand something. He was told what everyone else was. NASCAR's statement that night did not include the word "alleged". They stated, plain and simple, again in no uncertain terms, that a "heinous act" had been committed, despite having absolutely nothing to back up that particular claim.
Of course, they referenced Wallace's skin color in the release, and spoke about "racial injustice". Again, there's no way I don't believe they didn't know exactly what they were doing.
Wallace was merely reacting to what he was told as indisputable fact. Nothing he was doing involved embellishment of anything. Again, he didn't even see the "noose".
I'm not saying Wallace – as a person or as a driver – is innocent. He has had his polarizing moments in situations other than NASCAR's so-called "heinous act", both on and off the race track. Who hasn't?
But when the first thing he's associated with is the "noose", you have to wonder just how much hate he'd get if fans actually stopped to consider how that all went down, and the fact that he was no different than you or me when it came to watching how that situation unfolded.
And what most outlets won't tell you is that while Wallace did speak out about the so-called "heinous act" from the time it was "confirmed" by NASCAR to the time the FBI actually confirmed the opposite, he later admitted that the whole thing "kind of looks bad".
He's a realist; we all know that. We see him wear his emotions on his sleeve every week. He knew how it was perceived. He knew that those criticized and vilified for their suspicions were actually right. And he knew how it all made him look, even if he had personally done nothing wrong.
Yet all NASCAR did, and all the media did, was inexplicably double down, treating the vast majority of the fanbase with a condescending level of tone deafness that implied they saw them as nothing more than oblivious and ready to stand shoulder to shoulder in a battle against something that never happened to begin with.
Instead of being grateful beyond words – like anybody should have been – that no racist act was committed against NASCAR's lone African American driver, that's the reaction we got.
If there was ever an example of the infamous "Believe in something, even if it didn't happen" meme, this was it. This was the epitome. This was the poster child.
NASCAR could have handled it a lot better. Instead, they sold Bubba down the river, all under the guise of "standing behind him", without acknowledging any sort of accountability for a mistake, misjudgment, and overreaction of gargantuan proportions.
More than a year later, Jimmie Johnson spoke out about NASCAR's sensationalism, stating that all NASCAR needed to do was include the word "alleged", and things would have been different.
It really would have been that simple. As we all know, they didn't.
And guess what? Credit where credit is due: NASCAR president Steve Phelps ended up admitting the same thing as well. NASCAR knew they messed up, and they finally admitted it.
But unfortunately, the damage was done. "Alleged" would have implied the possibility that something didn't happen, and even though that's what was true, NASCAR didn't want to leave the door open to that.
I feel as strongly about the whole thing as anybody. But none of that is Bubba's fault. This is, and always was, the farthest thing from a Jussie Smollett situation.
I just hope more fans can come to terms with that, five-plus years later, and that the justified frustration with NASCAR and the media doesn't continue to translate to unjustified hate toward Bubba.
I'm not saying you should suddenly root for him. I'm not saying his Brickyard 400 win – another interesting irony shared with Paul Menard, for whatever that's worth – makes him the greatest driver ever.
What I am saying is that the facts and the reality of why Wallace is so hated don't match up with the facts and the reality of what actually happened back in June 2020.
In fact, they couldn't be farther apart.