A North Carolina racetrack owner is facing massive criticism and boycotts from fans after he decided to advertise “Bubba Rope” for sale on Facebook marketplace.
The racist post comes after Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only full-time Black driver in its top tier, and NASCAR itself made public statements about a noose being found Sunday in his garage before one of NASCAR’s most famous races, the Geico 500 at Talladega, Ala.
“Buy your Bubba Rope today for only $9.99 each, they come with a lifetime warranty and work great,” said Mike Fulp, owner of 311 Motor Speedway in Stokes County, on Wednesday.
Fulp’s post received major backlash on social media and even from the North Carolina Governor’s office.
“This incident of racism is horrific and shameful,” said Ford Porter, deputy commissioner of communications for Governor Roy Cooper, in the Winston Salem Journal. “North Carolina is better than this.”
Many on social media were critical of Fulp for his decision to post the ad and led many self-proclaimed loyal spectators to say that they would stop attending events.
On Thursday the post was removed.
This is not the first time Fulp’s has been involved in posting problematic things on social media. Another post this week showed that Fulp was hosting a “heritage night” at his track on Saturday where fans could bring Confederate flags, an item that NASCAR itself banned earlier this month after Wallace asked for the flag to be removed from events.
In addition to his stance on the Confederate flag, Fulp also disobeyed Cooper’s state safety guidelines to thwart the spread of COVID-19, when he decided to open his racetrack in May to his fans.
The FBI investigated the incident with Wallace and found that the noose had been in the garage since October 2019 and thus was not a hate crime directed at Wallace. NASCAR released an image of the noose on Thursday.
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