A North Carolina racetrack is feeling the effects of its owner’s racism.
Mike Fulp, owner of 311 Speedway in Stokes County, N.C., advertised a noose-shaped “Bubba Rope” last week on Facebook Marketplace. “Buy your Bubba Rope today for only $9.99 each, they come with a lifetime warranty and work great,” the since-deleted post said.
The track has lost multiple partnerships and faced enormous backlash, including from governor Roy Cooper, in the days since. Among the organizations distancing themselves from the track is the Carolina Sprint Tour, which announced it would not race at 311 Speedway for the rest of the season.
“We do not condone nor support the comments and posts that have been made the past week,” the series said, via the Winston-Salem Journal.
Last Monday, Fulp, who has a history of racist social media posts, announced the speedway’s “Heritage Night” while encouraging fans to bring Confederate flags. You can click here to view some of Fulp’s posts, including the “Bubba Rope” listing, but be warned: The content is disturbing.
Of course, Fulp was referencing NASCAR driver Darrell Wallace Jr., who has become the face of NASCAR’s anti-racism conversation. Last Sunday, members of Wallace’s team discovered a noose in his garage at Talladega Superspeedway. Two days later, the FBI concluded the noose — a fashioned garage pull rope — was in the stall at least as recently as last fall, and that Wallace was not the target of a hate crime.
After conducting a sweep of 1,684 garage stalls at 29 tracks, NASCAR found that only 11 stalls had pull-down ropes tied in knots and only one — the one found in Wallace’s garage — tied as a noose.
