Nascar's Bubba Wallace on Monday (6 July) accused Donald Trump of stirring up "hate" after the US President demanded that the circuit's only black driver apologise for protests launched over a noose found hanging in his garage stall.
The garage door pull-rope fashioned like a noose - widely seen as a symbol of lynchings in the American South - sparked outrage when it was found but the FBI concluded it was not the result of a hate crime.
Dozens of Wallace's fellow drivers staged a demonstration against bigotry but the FBI probe discovered that the rope had been hanging in the stall months before the 23 June race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.