Bubba Wallace recently opened up about the noose incident that happened at Talladega Superspeedway in June. He recently spoke to Steve Harvey on STEVE on Watch about the noose and revealed NASCAR president Steve Phelps informed him. That was when Wallace got very emotional.
“It was brought to my attention from NASCAR president Steve Phelps; he came into my motorhome,” Wallace said. “He told me…there was a potential hate crime committed and that there was a noose found in my garage and I was kind of taken aback. He had tears in his eyes, I had tears in my eyes, and he said ‘We are gonna get to the bottom of this and find this person that did it.’ The good news was Wallace was not targeted for a hate crime after the FBI’s investigation concluded. However, fans attacked Wallace and NASCAR for making the noose incident up for ratings. Wallace told Harvey: “They said… ‘we cannot confirm it was a hate crime towards you, but in fact, yes, it was a noose.’”
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Despite the FBI concluding there was a noose in Wallace’s garage, President Donald Trump went to Twitter to accuse him and NASCAR of lying about the incident. Wallace responded to Trump’s tweet with a calm reaction but told Harvey he wanted to give a more robust response.
“There were so many things I wanted to say, but I would’ve been stepping down to that level. Think about it – stepping DOWN to the president’s level,” Wallace said. “This sport, sports in general, teaches you how to be stronger through the defeats. I’m not just talking about on the court or on the race track – I’m talking about off the court.”
The noose incident comes shortly after NASCAR deciding to ban Confederate flags at races, which was made possible by Wallace. There was some backlash from fans, but Wallace was happy NASCAR made the decision so quickly.
“Bravo. Props to NASCAR and everybody involved,” Wallace said before the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway in June. This move is no doubt the biggest race of my career tonight. And it couldn’t be at a more perfect place, where I got my first win in the Truck Series in 2013. Followed it up with that second win in 2014.”
