"Given the facts presented to us, we would have pursued this with the same sense of urgency and purpose," Phelps said Thursday. "Upon learning of seeing the noose, our initial reaction was to protect our driver. We're living in a highly charged and emotional time. What we saw was a symbol of hate, and was only present in one area of the garage -- that of the 43 car of Bubba Wallace.

"In hindsight, we should have -- I should have -- used the word 'alleged' in our statement. … As you can see from the photo, the noose was real, as was our concern for Bubba. 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 were proud to see so many stand up for what's right."