Federal Authorities Investigating Noose in Bubba Wallace’s Garage

Despite NASCAR’s palpable fury — the company said it would try to identify any wrongdoers and “eliminate them from the sport” — the episode was another troubling moment for the motor sports empire, which has tried to distance itself from a past in which it cultivated ties with segregationists and harbored racists and their tropes.

For decades, the Confederate battle flag was a common sight at races, especially at Talladega, and NASCAR was closely connected to figures like George C. Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor and an influential force in the development of the Talladega track.

The speedway, which opened in 1969, has seen few professional black drivers across the decades.

Willy T. Ribbs, who drove a handful of NASCAR races and was the first black man to compete in the Indianapolis 500, recalled in an interview last week how he had received a hostile reception, including from other drivers, when he first visited Talladega in 1978.

“People were spitting all around my feet,” he said. “I was in the pits just to meet some of the drivers — only one or two would even say anything to me.”

But in recent years, NASCAR, which has seen attendance and television ratings decline, has sometimes sought to step away from its history. In 2015, after a white supremacist killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., officials at top tracks urged people not to fly the Confederate flag at competitions, and some of the sport’s top drivers, like Dale Earnhardt Jr., spoke out about racism and their opposition to the battle flag.

It was only this month, though, after Bubba Wallace spoke out in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, that NASCAR announced a ban of the battle flag. The decision enraged some fans, as well as some drivers, and on Sunday, hundreds of cars adorned in battle flags assembled near Talladega before forming a two-mile caravan and driving past the track entrance in protest.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/sports/autoracing/bubba-wallace-noose-nascar.html