{"id":29835,"date":"2020-06-25T14:15:52","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T19:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=29835"},"modified":"2020-06-25T14:23:14","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T19:23:14","slug":"nascar-investigation-confirms-noose-at-talladega-was-no-hoax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/25\/nascar-investigation-confirms-noose-at-talladega-was-no-hoax\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR investigation confirms noose at Talladega was no hoax"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

During an update Thursday on NASCAR\u2019s investigation into a noose found in Bubba Wallace\u2019s garage stall on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR president Steve Phelps quickly dispelled any insinuation that the incident was a hoax.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

NASCAR has released the photo of the noose found in the No. 43 garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday afternoon. (Photo Credit: NASCAR)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBubba Wallace and the 43 team had nothing to do with this,\u201d Phelps said, responding to negative assertions by conspiracy theorists on social media. \u201cBubba Wallace has done nothing but represent this sport with courage, class and dignity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is offensive seeing anyone suggest otherwise, and frankly, it\u2019s further evidence of how far we need to go as a society.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Wallace had been an outspoken advocate of banning the Confederate flag from properties where NASCAR races, a policy the sanctioning body has adopted. In that context, it was a natural assumption that the driver might have been targeted and that an investigation was warranted.<\/p>\n

After the garage stall pull-down rope fashioned as a noose was discovered by a member of the No. 43 team on Sunday afternoon<\/a>, an investigation conducted by 15 FBI field agents was launched. The FBI concluded that the noose had been present in the same garage stall as early as last October\u2019s NASCAR weekend at Talladega and that no federal hate crime directed at Wallace had been committed.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Teleconference_StevePhelps_062520.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Before the teleconference with Phelps, NASCAR released a photo of the noose in the garage stall. The sanctioning body continued its own investigation into the origin of the noose and conducted an inventory of all garage stalls at the 29 tracks that host NASCAR Cup Series events.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR conducted a thorough sweep of all the garage areas at tracks where we race,\u201d Phelps said. \u201cAcross those 29 tracks and 1,684 garage stalls, we found only 11 total that had a pull-down rope tied in a knot and only one noose\u2014the one discovered on Sunday in Bubba Wallace\u2019s garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe further determined that the noose was not in place when the October 2019 race weekend began but was created at some point during that weekend. Given that timing, and the garage access policies and procedures at the time, we were unfortunately unable to determine with any certainty who tied this rope in this manner or why it was done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelps then asked rhetorically how the noose could have gone unnoticed by so many people in October 2019 and on the morning of June 21, 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur ultimate conclusion for this investigation is to make sure this never happens again, that no one walks by a noose without recognizing the potential damage it can do,\u201d Phelps said. \u201cMoving forward, we\u2019ll be conducting thorough sweeps of the garage area to ensure nothing like this happens again, and we\u2019re installing additional cameras in all of our garages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll make any changes necessary to our sanctions and our code of conduct, and we will mandate that all members of our community complete sensitivity and unconscious bias training, with specifics and bias forthcoming. Going forward, our efforts are best spent on making sure every competitor feels safe, and every guest feels welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelps emphasized, however, that the results of the investigation should not diminish the heartfelt show of support Wallace received from his fellow competitors and their crew members, who\u2014believing he had been targeted and threatened\u2014escorted him to the head of the grid before Monday\u2019s<\/a> rain-delayed GEICO 500 and stood in solidarity with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASCAR showed its true colors on Monday\u2014our drivers, our crews, anyone at the racetrack, but more importantly, all the fans that watched it on TV,\u201d Phelps said. \u201cI watched it on television, and I’m not embarrassed to say, I cried. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an emotional, moving moment for our sport and I think an important one that suggests that NASCAR is welcome to all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service During an update Thursday on NASCAR\u2019s investigation into a noose found in Bubba Wallace\u2019s garage stall on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR president Steve Phelps quickly dispelled any insinuation that the incident was a hoax. \u201cBubba Wallace and the 43 team had nothing to do with this,\u201d Phelps said, responding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":29832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,779],"class_list":["post-29835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-steve-phelps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/No43GarageStallNoose-scaled.jpg?fit=1920%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7Ld","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29839,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29835\/revisions\/29839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}