On Monday, the Geico 500 at Talladega saw Ryan Blaney outlast Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on the final lap in overtime to claim his second straight win at the event, but it was what happened with Bubba Wallace, who is the only full-time Black driver in the sport, that created the biggest news. Prior to the race, a noose was discovered in Wallace’s stall as a member of his team was the first to learn of it and quickly reported it. Investigators then took over the incident in search of answers.
On Tuesday afternoon, the FBI determined that no federal crime was committed. The report says the noose had actually been in there since last October and that “no one could have known Mr. Wallace would have been assigned” to that particular garage. No further federal charges will be pursued. After learning of the FBI’s findings, many people took to Twitter with, arguably, more questions than previously. The most significant talking point among those is just exactly why a noose would be in there in the first place, let alone for the past nine months. Others wondered if it was all a hoax, a claim that Wallace already expressed his frustration with while appearing on The View.
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Together pic.twitter.com/D4zW3jA5y5
โ Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) June 22, 2020
Here is a look at the chatter going on across Twitter after the FBI’s discovery.
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So we just leave a noose laying around a nascar garage for months? Weird.
โ Shawn Pinkerton (@shawn_pinks) June 23, 2020
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So why hadn’t it been removed before?
โ The Artful Roger. Diamond of many Facets. (@Rojodi) June 23, 2020
Why was it allowed to stay?
Talladega management has some explaining to do!
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So there was a noose in that garage in 2019 and nobody said anything about it? Nobody had a problem with it before? Nobody thought to take it down? This raises more questions than answers.
โ Vic Bloom (@VicBloom99) June 23, 2020
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Why are there nooses just hanging around in the first place
โ XcL03 (@xclusive03) June 23, 2020
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Oh, boy this has backfired on @NASCAR in a major way. pic.twitter.com/D9OQnOKBtH
โ BobaTFett (@TommyBayBuc) June 23, 2020
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Nah the results of that investigation really was โNah that noose wasnโt for Bubba specifically. It was just already lying around.โ
โ Yip Yip with the Blip Blip (@PBS_Impulse9) June 23, 2020
Lmaooooo my God
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Iโm glad to hear the FBI thoroughly investigated the rope in Bubba Wallaceโs NASCAR garage and found that it was used for likely pulling down the garage door and not as a noose for a hate crime. I never tweeted about this before because I wanted real evidence for the real truth.
โ Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) June 23, 2020