NASCAR Drivers Support Bubba Wallace After Noose Is Found in Talladega Stall

“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 while in police custody in Minneapolis, that NASCAR announced a ban of the battle flag. The decision enraged some fans, 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.

Only after sundown did NASCAR announce what had happened in Wallace’s stall.

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