You might say Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR driver who pulled a noose hoax at the Talladega Superspeedway’s Geico 500, ran out of gas again.
Or downshifted.
But he didn’t quite hit the brakes.
Nor did he slam the hoax into reverse when he finally admitted yesterday that the “noose” he saw in his garage, which required a probe by more than a dozen FBI agents to prove it was really a garage pull, wasn’t really a noose at all.
Rather, Winless Wallace is “relieved,” he explained, that he hadn’t seen the “alternative.”
He did not apologize.
NOOSECAR Panics
Everything seemed just fine in the NASCAR world after Wallace, weeks ago on CNN talker Don Lemon’s program, ordered the venerable racing organization to ban the Confederate battle flag.
NASCAR obeyed. The outfit’s white drivers even pulled together a video backing Black Lives Matter that resembled a Maoist Struggle Session.
Wallace drove a BLM car.
But then someone — we don’t know who — found the “noose” in Wallace’s garage at Talladega, and the world stopped. The nation’s noosepapers shifted into high gear.
“Today’s despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism,” Wallace fumed.
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“We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act,” NASCAR growled:
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.
The FBI detailed 15 agents to discover the identity of the noose maker only to discover, amazingly enough, that the rope in question was the pull-down for the garage door.
“No federal crime was committed,” the FBI determined, and the “noose” had been there since at least October of last year.
Still, Wallace was unconvinced, and returned to the congenial climes of Lemon’s program to say the FBI was wrong.
“The FBI has stated it was a noose over and over again,” Wallace said. “NASCAR leadership has stated that it was a noose. I can confirm that I actually got evidence of what was hanging in my garage, over my car, around my picker guys, to confirm that it was a noose and never seen anything like that.”
Wallace did not say what evidence he “actually got,” but anyway, when Lemon asked Wallace what, exactly, he was saying, Wallace obliged:
It was a noose…. Whether tied in 2019 or whatever, it was a noose so it wasn’t directed at me but somebody tied a noose. That’s what I am saying. It is a noose.
Narrative Stalls
The noose claim was leaking oil from the moment it left the starting line, as the FBI quickly proved, and now Wallace — having assured Lemon that what he saw was, indeed, a noose — has admitted the truth.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Wallace explained what a tough time he’s had:
It’s been an emotional few days. First off, I want to say how relieved I am that the investigation revealed that this wasn’t what we feared it was. I want to thank my team, NASCAR and the FBI for acting swiftly and treating this as a real threat. I think we’ll gladly take a little embarrassment over what the alternatives could have been. Make no mistake, though some will try, this should not detract from the show of unity we had on Monday and the progress we’ve made as a sport to be a more welcoming environment for all.
The statement did not serve Wallace well in the Twitterverse, which is full of memes ridiculing NASCAR’s only black driver.
Three photos, one of white water cooler cups, one of a white funnel, and one of the detached hood of a white car, say Wallace found “white hoods” in his garage.
Another depicts a tire iron and says “Bubba Wallace finds a burning cross in his garage stall.”
Riffing off Wallace’s “I Can’t Breathe” shirt, another photo alters those words to “I Can’t Identify A Garage Door Pull.”
Wrote one angry fan, “You stoked racial divide where there was none, in the racing community and us fans, NASCAR and you thought it was one of us, you have ruined NASCAR, we fans won’t forget and you think the boos for Kyle Busch are loud, they will be even louder for you.”
Image: screenshot from YouTube video
R. Cort Kirkwood is long-time contributor to New American and a former newspaper editor.
