NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace said he wasn’t entirely surprised to learn someone had placed a noose in his team’s garage.
Wallace, NASCAR’s only full-time black driver, said on Tuesday that his father warned him to be careful after he spoke out about the Confederate flag at races, after which NASCAR moved to ban the flags from all events.
“My dad had told me … after the Confederate flag deal, he said, ‘I’m proud of you, but I’m also worried about your safety, so you have to be careful,’” Wallace said during an appearance on ABC’s The View. “So, this just shows how much I have to watch my back, and he reiterated that on Sunday after I called him.”
“Got to watch your back; you got to keep your head on a swivel,” the No. 43 driver recounted his father telling him.
Wallace also described the emotions he felt when he learned about the noose and said he wasn’t completely caught off guard because of his father’s warning.
“Obviously, I was hurt. I was sad that people would go to those measures,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m shocked because we see the stuff that goes on in the world, but it’s just unfortunate that it happened to me, and my crew was able to see it and witness that, and it kind of took our mind off racing for a little bit.”
Wallace recalled how NASCAR’s president met with him about finding the noose.
“He called and wanted to come over and talk face to face, and he had told me what had happened, and tears was in his eyes, flowing from him, from the moment he stepped inside my motor home … he was so upset,” he said. “I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I have never, obviously, never had that happen, and not being able to see it directly, I was just kind of thinking, like, ‘What?’ Trying to process it all.”
The FBI is investigating the noose that was found in Wallace’s garage. NASCAR said it was also conducting an investigation into the incident.
