A picture is worth ...

Well, well, well. So a storyline that got knocked into a cocked hat now gets knocked into another cocked hat.

Possible reactions to the photo of the noose in Bubba Wallace's garage from the Grassy Knoll/Those Black Folk Are Always Making Everything About Racism contingent:

"Pffft. NASCAR totally photoshopped that."

"That doesn't even look like a pull rope. Totally fake."

"You can tell that ain't Talladega."

"That's not a noose. A noose looks like this (displays photo of something that looks exactly like the noose in Wallace's garage)"

And of course:

"BUBBA WALLACE DID IT HIMSELF."

Look. You can say all of that. You can assume NASCAR's leadership is comprised entirely of soulless, morally bankrupt individuals who'd actually concoct something this vile themselves so they could exploit it for ratings. You can say they're straight-up, bald-faced lying about checking out all the garages on their circuit and finding only 11 whose pull ropes were fashioned in a loop, and only one done up like a noose -- garage No. 4 at Talladega, which just happened to be assigned to Wallace's team for last weekend's race.

You can say all that.

Or you can wonder how such a thing escaped notice last October, a semi-legit question.

You can wonder that even though it clearly didn't escape notice, because someone obviously told the investigators about it.

You can wonder who fashioned that pull rope into a noose, and if that person was trying to send a message in doing so or was simply making some sort of stupid sick joke. And if no one said anything about it at the time because everyone just assumed it was some sort of stupid sick joke.

You can wonder, finally, if someone maybe did tell NASCAR about it at the time, or if a NASCAR official actually noticed it himself -- which, as someone who's spent a fair amount of time in a NASCAR garage area, is not as likely as you might think it is.

But if NASCAR did know about it?

Well. Then we need to be asking who assigns the garages.

Because it's a little hard for me to buy that Wallace's team just happened to be the team that was assigned to the garage with the noose hanging in it. That's a bit too much of a coincidence for me to swallow.

But then, I have a suspicious nature sometimes, too.