During a conference call with reporters on Thursday following the release of the findings of an FBI investigation, NASCAR President Steve Phelps stressed that the rope “fashioned like a noose” found in African-American driver Bubba Wallace’s garage and concern that Wallace was the target of a hate crime “was real.” While he stressed that very “real” concern, he also suggested that NASCAR should have been more cautious in its initial announcement about the “noose.”
“Upon learning of and seeing the noose, our initial reaction was to protect our driver,” Phelps said on the call Thursday, as reported by AFP. “We’re living in a highly charged and emotional time. What we saw was a symbol of hate and was only present in one area of the garage and that was of the 43 car of Bubba Wallace.”
Phelps then admitted that he personally should have handled the situation in a more measured way initially.
“In hindsight, I should have used the word ‘alleged’ in our statement,” said Phelps. “As you can see from the photo, the noose was real, as was our concern for Bubba,” he added in reference to the photo of the rope tied in a noose-like way NASCAR released Thursday (photo below).
NASCAR just released a photo of the garage pull rope that was fashioned into a noose at Talladega. pic.twitter.com/gRAUAJoYv2
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) June 25, 2020
Though the FBI investigation, conducted by 15 FBI agents, determined that the noose-like rope pull had been in the garage since fall of 2019, long before Wallace’s team was in the stall, and that 11 other garages had similar pull ropes, though no others were tied in the same fashion, Phelps said NASCAR will be implementing “sensitivity and unconscious bias training for all members of the industry along with additional sweeps through garage areas and installation of additional cameras in all garages,” AFP reports.
“Our ultimate conclusion for this investigation is to ensure that this never happens again, that no one walks by a noose without recognizing the potential damage it can do,” Phelps said on the call Thursday.
In his initial statement on the suspected “hate crime” on Sunday, Phelps called the supposedly deliberate hanging of the “noose” in Wallace’s garage stall a “heinous act” and said the person responsible will be “banned for life.”
“As we have stated unequivocally there is no place for racism in NASCAR,” said Phelps. “This act only strengthens our resolve to make this sport open and welcome to all. We are going to use every effort that we can to determine who has done this, whether it is a single person or multiple people. The director of the FBI has informed its Birmingham office to use all of its resources to find it as well.”
“Unequivocally, this person will be banned for life,” he said. “There is no room for this at all, and we won’t tolerate it, and they won’t be here. I don’t care who they are. They won’t be here.”
The next day, in a display of solidarity with Wallace, NASCAR had many of its drivers walk behind his car and promoted video of the moving moment on social media:
Together.#IStandWithBubba pic.twitter.com/achL5H70Ng
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 22, 2020
Related: Bubba Wallace Changes Course In New Statement On ‘Emotional’ Past Few Days
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