Wallace grudgingly relives 2020 turmoil in new Netflix doc

Bubba Wallace revisits his role in the national racial reckoning in an upcoming Netflix documentary

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- “It wasn’t a hoax. It was real."

That's what former FBI supervisory agent Stanley Ruffin tells viewers in “RACE: Bubba Wallace," a Netflix docuseries that chronicles the only Black driver at NASCAR's top level and his professional rise and personal role in social justice issues. The series is targeted to a non-NASCAR audience unfamiliar with Wallace's emergence or the facts surrounding the noose found in his garage stall at an Alabama track.

Wallace had successfully called on NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag at its events in June 2020. Two weeks later, NASCAR told Wallace a noose had been discovered in his assigned stall at Talladega Superspeedway.

The incident occurred at the height of a national racial reckoning following the murders of Black men George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. Wallace felt compelled to take a public position for the first time in his life — he was 26 years old, NASCAR's only fulltime Black driver, and although he drove for icon Richard Petty, Wallace was an underperformer seeking his first career Cup Series win.