NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace has spoken out after the FBI investigated the noose found in his garage — and ruled that it was not a hate crime.
“I’m pissed. I’m mad because people are trying to test my character and the person that I am and my integrity,” Wallace told CNN’s Don Lemon. “They’re not stealing that from me, but trying to test that.”
Some on Twitter have cast doubts over the FBI — saying they don’t trust their investigation.
“The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019,” the FBI said in a statement.
NASCAR put out a statement of its own, saying in part: “The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall.” NASCAR president Steve Phelps.
But Bubba is calling foul.
“The image that I have seen of what was hanging in my garage is not a garage pull. I’ve been racing all my life. We’ve raced out of hundreds of garages that never had garage pulls like that. People that want to call it a ‘garage pull’ will put out videos and photos of knots as their evidence,” the racer told CNN.
Bubba is NASCAR’s sole Black driver.
“From the evidence that we have and I have, it’s a straight-up noose. The FBI has stated that it was a noose over and over again. NASCAR leadership has stated it was a noose. I can confirm that I actually got evidence of what was hanging in my garage, over my car, around my pit crew guys, to confirm that it was a noose. It was a noose that was whether tied in 2019 or whenever, it was a noose. It wasn’t directed at me, but somebody tied a noose.”