Bubba Wallace, during an appearance on The Breakfast Club, says there are a subset of the NASCAR fanbase that just can’t get over the 2020 Talladega noose incident, even though he had nothing to do with it.
“It was there before we got there, years before we got there,” Wallace stated. “It was just a coincidence that I had that garage. It’s wild. It’s still a topic of discussion. You should see my Twitter mentions. …It’s wild that it’s still going about it. But it was there before we even got there, and just the one in a million coincidences that I had that garage stall.
“It was tied in a fashion like that, it could have been this small, it doesn’t matter. It is what it is. We’ve moved on from it, and it sucks that the sport was put in that situation, that I was put in that situation, our team was put in that situation. But we’ve learned a lot about who we are as a sport and who we are as competitors, and that’s all you can ask for.”
The NASCAR Cup Series arrived to Talladega Superspeedway on June 21, 2020 and found a garage rope pull fastened as a noose. It was just a coincidence as a joint NASCAR and FBI investigation revealed it had been there since 2019.
At the time, Wallace drove for Richard Petty Motorsports and never saw the rope in person as it was during the COVID pandemic and drivers were kept separated from teams until just before race time. Wallace says fan reaction has changed since then, during a period he has become more competitive too.
“A year or two after that was rough,” Wallace said. I went from being one of the most favorable drivers, but now it’s just been the boos and stuff. That’s okay because it’s sports.
“I love going to college football games, Tennessee and college basketball games. I’m not a person that boos other teams because I’m kind of in the sports world myself, and it just kind of seems childish. But fans do what they want, so booing is a part of sports in general. The next week after Talladega was like, a light switch. It was like, whoa! Holy shit, I didn’t ask for this. Now they’re making noise.”
Wallace also publicly successfully advocated, around the same time, for NASCAR to make overtures against fans flying the Confederate flag at races.
“I think we all came together as one, in unison, and I think that’s all you can ask for in sports. But, for the ones that didn’t necessarily want it banned, they didn’t come forward or show their displeasure. I can honestly say the sport has been way better without it.”
