NASCAR releases photo of rope in Wallace's garage stall

NASCAR released a photo Thursday of the garage pull rope that was tied as a noose and found in Bubba Wallace's garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday.

NASCAR president Steve Phelps said it conducted a "thorough sweep of all 29 tracks where they race, and (of) 1,684 garage stalls, they found only 11 total ropes that had a pulldown rope tied in a knot, and just one noose: The one in Bubba Wallace's garage," according to Marty Smith of ESPN.

The FBI concluded Tuesday that "no federal crime was committed," and the noose found was in the garage as early as October 2019 based on photographic evidence.

Phelps said that, in hindsight, NASCAR should have used "alleged" in its statement about the incident on Sunday.

"As you can see from the photo, the noose was real, as was our concern for Bubba," Phelps said in a press release Thursday. "With similar emotion, others across our industry and our media stood up to defend the NASCAR family. Our NASCAR family. Because they are part of the NASCAR family, too. We are proud to see so many stand up for what's right."