The great NASCAR Noose Incident fizzles out

The FBI reports that the “noose” found in NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace’s garage at Talladega was actually a pull rope that had been there since last fall, before Wallace and his team were assigned the garage.

Ooops.

Same story on Twitter. And they have photos to prove it.

Apparently, kinda typical to have pull ropes like that in hangars, with noose-like loops at the end so you can grab them. How’d anybody mistake this for a real noose in the first place?

Sometimes, a noose is just, a noose?

This is actually a better conclusion than what I had thought, which is that he had done it himself.

Why did you think that?

Jessie Smollett controversy repeat, I imagine they thought.

No noose is good noose.

Yes, but there were all kinds of fishy elements to Jessie Smollett’s story.

Were there any fishy elements to Bubba Wallace’s story? I didn’t read of any.

Golf clap.

No noose is good noose

Isn’t that my line?

I didn’t read much about this case, but from what I did read, I was thinking to myself “How did they differentiate it from a piece of rope in the same shape that actually has a use in a NASCAR garage?” And the answer in this case is that they didn’t.

I’m upset that there is no punishment for Wallace forthcoming. The guy sees a door pull and goes ape shit and reports that it is a noose, upsetting the public, upsetting the sport, and involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation over a fucking garage door pull. There are riots going on out there and how much more destruction of property does he want to occur because either: 1) He’s an idiot, or 2) he purposely misreported this for more headlines.

Wasn’t the first clue that this rope actually had a function?

@ultravires, Why in gods name would there be punishment for Wallace forthcoming? Wallace didn’t see the noose and didn’t report it, but one of the crew members did.

Mighty white of you.

Wallace never saw the noose, ESPN’s Marty Smith reported. It was first seen by a member of Wallace’s team, who immediately brought it to the attention of NASCAR, Smith reported. NASCAR told Fox Sports that it will work with law enforcement.

That makes it even worse. He didn’t see it but reported it as if he had. Before making the allegation he should have gone and looked for himself.

Seriously, W.T.F? Who’s going apeshit about what now? Assuming you even read the article, you came to the conclusion that HE should be punished!?

Nm, too hard to link with phone.

Absolutely. His crew member says that there is a noose in his garage. He doesn’t even look at it, but causes an FBI investigation. Couldn’t any idiot go in there an say, “Oh, this thing is a pull rope.” Yeah it vaguely looked like a noose because there was a loop at the end so you can pull it with your hand.

To make such a wild allegation based on the evidence is irresponsible and detracts from real racism.

ETA: We definitely want to punish racism. To do that we need to punish false and made up allegations of racism.

Made up? You think in this time when everyone is on edge, you jump to “he made it up?” I’ll type slowly here because this seems to be a point you are missing…among many. It. Wasn’t. Even. Him. That. Called. The. FBI.

Hmm. A hangman’s noose is quite distinctive and would not have any use in a garage. It is not really mistakable for an eye splice

or heaving-line knot

or bowline

or anything one would be used to and expect to see.

I get that. But he went on talk shows and made statements without even so much as going to look at the pull rope. He didn’t say “Whoa, dude, you called the FBI? Let’s go have a look first.”

And even after the FBI concluded it was a pull rope, he continued to refer to it as a noose as did Al Sharpton.