Bubba Wallace admits noose controversy was a 'coincidence'

At the height of racial tension in the U.S. in 2020, a rope, tied like a noose, was found in NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s garage at a NASCAR track.

The outcry was loud, and the day after the rope was found, Wallace led a large pack of drivers and other NASCAR personnel before a race at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama in solidarity amid Black Lives Matter protests.

The FBI ultimately found that the rope was a “garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose” that had been there long before Wallace took over the garage.

“One in a million, katrillion coincidences that I had that garage stall,” Wallace told “The Breakfast Club” on Power 105.1 in New York during an interview on Wednesday.

Co-host Charlamagne tha God joked, “They knew you was coming,” and the two shared a laugh.

Wallace said that it’s still a common topic of conversation.

“It’s wild. You should see my Twitter mentions. ‘Bubba finished third. Well, was there a noose?’” It’s wild that it’s still going,” he related.

Wallace said he’s “moved on” from the situation, but it took a while to get used to his new reality.

“It sucks the sport was put in that situation, that I was put in that situation, our team was put in that situation, but we’ve learned a lot about who we are as a sport and competitors, and that’s all you can ask for,” he said.

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“The year or two after that was rough. I went from one of the more favorable drivers to the boos and stuff. That’s OK, because it’s sports. I love going to college football games and college basketball games. I’m not a person that boos other teams, because I’m in the sports world myself, and it just kind of seems childish, but fans do what they want. Booing is a part of sports in general. But the next week after Talladega, it was like, ‘holy s—, I didn’t sign up for this.’ Now, it’s, they’re making noise. I’ve always been told, when they stop making noise, it’s worse.”

Two weeks before the rope was found, NASCAR officially banned Confederate flags from races, a move that Wallace said has made the sport “way better.”

“We all came together as one in unison, and I think that’s all you can ask for in the sport… I can honestly say the sport has been way better without it,” he said.