June 23, 2020

It was a beautiful show of support for Bubba Wallace yesterday at Talladega Super Speedway yesterday, as drivers and crew walked with his car after someone put a noose in Wallace's garage.

CNN's Diane Gallagher talked about the federal investigation into the alleged hate crime.

"You would think that this should a little easier to narrow down," she said. "The staff is credentialed. They are very essential personnel allowed in that area. We have no updates from the FBI on that investigation. We do know the FBI was here on site yesterday going through interview processes, looking at video potentially. NASCAR wouldn't comment on exactly what, if anything, had been captured on video but did acknowledge that there are a lot of cameras in that area and here at the track, so we don't have an update on the particular investigation," she said.

"NASCAR has said that, of course, if they get to -- if they find the person or persons responsible, they will be banned from the sport for life, and that show of support from the drivers that you guys were just talking about there was kind of the sport trying to say that we're not going to stand for this.

"It was something that organically happened with the drivers. It kind of went down according to some of the drivers I've talked with on this group text message where they came up with the idea to show support that way in those pre-race ceremonies there."

Richard Petty was there to show support for his Number 43 driver.

Bubba spoke to the fans .

"The sport is changing. The deal that happened yesterday -- sorry I'm not wearing my mask, but I wanted to show whoever it was that you're not going to take away my smile, and I'm going to keep on going."

UPDATE: It turns out the noose had been in that garage since 2019. Washington Post reports:

U.S. Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr. said an investigation determined “although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week.”

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