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Ray Ciccarelli, the NASCAR driver who threatened to quit after the sport banned the Confederate flag, tried to set the record straight about his controversial post on Facebook, saying he believes his thoughts were misconstrued but doesn’t regret what he said. Ciccarelli took part in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series this weekend, …
Ray Ciccarelli, the NASCAR driver who threatened to quit after the sport banned the Confederate flag, tried to set the record straight about his controversial post on Facebook, saying he believes his thoughts were misconstrued but doesn’t regret what he said.
Ciccarelli took part in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series this weekend, finishing 29th, and isn’t sure if he will follow through on his threat about selling off his CMI Motorsports team following the 2020 season.
“I wasn’t raised the way people are portraying me to be. That’s just not me,” Ciccarelli told TobyChristie.com. “I am not that type of person. Just the attack — my wife, my family have been attacked and abused on social media. It’s just heartbreaking.”
But he doesn’t regret what he wrote in the Facebook post, either, even if he has since deactivated his Facebook page. He insisted he wasn’t defending the Confederate flag. In the post, he wrote that he would quit after the 2020 season and “I don’t believe in kneeling during Anthem nor taken ppl right to fly whatever flag they love.”
In the follow-up interview, the 50-year-old said “everything I was saying was the fact that I understand both sides’ feelings toward the flag/ My viewpoint, all I was trying to say is how do you take [the flag] from one group and help support the group that it offends and then what do you do to the group that you took it from? Now, they get outraged.
“I guess I was just sitting there. I had seen the news thing come through referring to, NASCAR now allows you to kneel during the anthem. It just irritated me some,” Ciccarelli explained. “I believe in standing for the national anthem, and I believe that if you want to kneel during the anthem, you should kneel. It just kind of triggered me, because we’re being told you can’t kneel, now you can kneel. It just set me off.
“We’re told one thing that we can’t do, then you’re told you can do,” Ciccarelli added. “Just to go back, about two years during the [Colin] Kaepernick deal, NASCAR did release a statement stating that team owners should take action to any teammates that decide to kneel during the national anthem. It was not going to be condoned what-so-ever.”
As for if he still plans to leave NASCAR, Cicarelli wouldn’t commit either way.
“That’s TBA,” he said.
