Here’s What Happened So Far in the JGR vs. Chris Gabehart Lawsuit

On Feb. 19, Joe Gibbs Racing filed a lawsuit with the Western District of North Carolina against its former competition director, Chris Gabehart, alleging that Gabehart stole confidential information from JGR in a scheme to share the information with Spire Motorsports.

A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for March 16.

By filing for the injunction, JGR is seeking relief from the court by ordering Gabehart and Spire to cease from “retaining, transferring, using, copying or disclosing JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets,” a supplemental memorandum read. Additionally, JGR is seeking that the court prohibit Gabehart from working in the NASCAR Cup or NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts series, that he return any device where he may have stored confidential information for a wholesale forensic examination and $8 million in damages.

Gabehart, who served as an engineer, crew chief and competition director for JGR from 2012 to 2025, denied the claims and said that JGR’s ultimate rationale for the lawsuit is “punishing a former employee daring to leave,” he stated in a filed response on Feb. 25.

According to JGR’s legal complaint, it stated that Gabehart had grown “dissatisfied with his position as Competition Director at JGR,” leading to a meeting between Gabehart and JGR team owner Joe Gibbs on Nov. 6, 2025. In that meeting, JGR said Gabehart informed Gibbs he wanted to assume full control and responsibility of JGR’s competition department, which Gibbs rejected.

Gabehart affirmed that he had grown frustrated with his role at JGR, stating that the responsibilities he held were not what he was led to believe when accepting the position in 2024.

The 44-year-old also expressed concerns about JGR’s No. 54 car — which is piloted by Gibbs’s grandson, Ty Gibbs — with the declaration stating that “key personnel decisions were made without my counsel or input despite my role as Competition Director; and critically the No. 54 driver was not held to the same meeting attendance standards as others on the team.”

Gabehart proceeded to inform Joe Gibbs that he preferred to resign from JGR, leading to the organization beginning the process of drafting a separation agreement. JGR claims the agreement would have allowed Gabehart to work for another team with his cooperation.

However, JGR alleged that both Gabehart and Spire violated the non-compete terms of the agreement by accusing Gabehart of conversing with Spire Motorsports, including a Dec. 2 meeting with Spire’s co-owner, Jeff Dickerson.

Additionally, JGR accused Gabehart of soliciting JGR employees to follow him to Spire. JGR confirmed one employee left for Spire at the beginning of the year. In addition, JGR executive Todd Berrier alleged that Gabehart texted him in October 2025 to confirm he was meeting with Spire’s co-owner Dan Towriss to discuss employment, though Gabehart denies the claim.

A few days after his departure from JGR, Gabehart received an offer from Spire, which he informed JGR of during an investigation in January. It was later confirmed that Gabehart was named the Chief Motorsports Officer at Spire, starting his role on Feb. 16, 2026.

With JGR believing that Gabehart had violated the noncompete terms of the separation agreement and was sharing confidential information with Spire, it counseled Clark Walton of Reliance Forensics to conduct a forensic investigation of Gabehart’s JGR laptop.

Following Walton’s investigation, JGR alleged that one day after meeting with Gibbs, Gabehart synced his personal Google Drive with his JGR laptop, where folders labeled “Spire” and “Past Setups” were discovered. JGR further alleged that Gabehart had used his personal cell phone to take over a dozen photos containing confidential information that violated the team’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets terms.

As a result, JGR ended its negotiations of a separation agreement with Gabehart, demanding that he cooperate in a forensic review of his devices. Initially, Gabehart refused a wholesale forensic review but later agreed to return any JGR information he possessed. He also agreed to a limited forensic protocol that would allow an examiner to review his Google Drive and personal cell phone for any confidential information he possessed.

Upon limited examination of Gabehart’s Google Drive and person cell phone, Walton alleged that Gabehart had taken over a dozen photos of JGR’s confidential information, including race setups, post-race data audits, financial information such as team payroll and driver compensation, driver performance analysis documents and several other items.

Gabehart confirmed that he did take the photos but has maintained that he did not share them with Spire, adding in a Feb. 25 declaration that the forensic investigation validated that he had not transmitted, distributed or otherwise shared any JGR confidential information. He also contested in a March 11 filing that JGR had no evidence that he had shared any confidential information with Spire.

Walton additionally alleged that before and after Gabehart’s final day at JGR on Nov. 10, Gabehart had interacted with several websites involving Spire, conducted several internet searches of “Spire Motorsports,” accessed JGR’s Microsoft SharePoint account and accessed a Microsoft OneDrive associated with Gabehart’s Gmail address that Walton believed Gabehart had not disclosed to JGR or its counsel. Walton also presented evidence that Gabehart had deleted files from his Google Drive following his departure from JGR.

Gabehart did confirm that he worked under the “Spire” file in his Google drive after departing JGR but insisted that he did not use any confidential information from JGR while accessing those folders.

Officially, JGR informed Gabehart that he was being terminated on Feb. 9.

A few days after filing its lawsuit, JGR amended its complaint by including Spire as a defendant in hopes of being granted expedited discovery prior to the March 16 injunction hearing in order to obtain documents detailing Gabehart’s communication with Spire, seeking to prove that Spire had stolen confidential information from the organization.

JGR also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, which would have required Gabehart to cease from using or sharing any confidential information from JGR, returning it to the team and cease from performing similar duties to his former role at JGR. The court granted a TRO in a March 5 hearing, though it did not prohibit Gabehart from continuing to work at Spire.

On March 6, JGR brought what it believed was additional evidence before the court to be granted expedited discovery on the grounds that “JGR is subject to irreparable harm” because “files relevant to this litigation have been deleted,” regarding Gabehart’s and Spire’s alleged misappropriation of confidential information.

Gabehart and Spire responded through its March 11 filings, asking the court to deny JGR expedited discovery. Spire said that expedited discovery is to be granted if there is “a likelihood of irreparable harm without access to early discovery,” arguing that JGR doesn’t have “good cause” that it would suffer irreparable damage.

In turn, Gabehart and Spire requested reciprocal discovery, with Spire’s filing stating it would seek non-privileged documents that show “whether the 18-Month Non-Compete Provision in Gabehart’s employment contract was applicable at the time Spire hired Gabehart.”

In an additional March 6 filing, it was disclosed that JGR had hired Ryan Simpson, a private investigator who surveilled Gabehart. Simpson alleged that Gabehart drove to Spire’s facility on Dec. 2, picked up Dickerson in his car and then proceeded to have lunch with him. Simpson also shared photographs of the meeting in the declaration.

A declaration from Dickerson on March 11 stated that the lunch was in a public setting, and Dickerson was “disturbed to learn that a competitor in our industry had hired someone to follow its former employee around.”

Also in JGR’s March 6 filings were Gibbs, JGR driver Denny Hamlin, Front Row Motorsports owner Bob Jenkins, former sponsor executives and JGR executives all submitted declarations that the team believes and supports its request for expedited discovery.

Hamlin, who is the co-owner of 23XI Racing (which has an alliance with JGR) and had Gabehart as his crew chief from 2019 to 2024, called the confidential information the “crown jewels” of the sport, further stating, “Allowing Gabehart to use JGR’s proprietary and confidential information for the benefit of a competitor like Spire would cause major harm not only to JGR but also to the sport of NASCAR. Should any of JGR’s competitors obtain JGR’s proprietary and confidential information, it would greatly diminish the value of such information, erode JGR’s competitive advantage and undermine the sanctity of fair competition in the sport.”

The 60-time NASCAR Cup Series winner eventually addressed Spire’s technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsports. Hamlin cited fears that the trade secrets Gabehart allegedly possessed could have a domino effect that allows a team like Spire to share said information with HMS, a result that Hamlin warned would “discourage all teams from investing in research, innovation and development and undermine fan confidence in the fairness of the sport.”

Jenkins, who is a few months removed from being embroiled in the 23XI/FRM vs. NASCAR trial, stated in his declaration that, “It is crossing over the line of fair competition in the industry to take confidential and strategic information from one NASCAR race team to a competitor NASCAR race team.”

Also notable in the filings were the declarations of Greg Heyer, the former executive vice president of retail sales and marketing for Zep, Inc., and Bill Lealos, a former director of specialty products for Saia, Inc.

Both Zep and Saia are primary sponsors of JGR. In their declarations, both men noted that they had received messages from Spire employees with invitations to either meet with them or other Spire employees, referring to JGR’s accusations that Spire was attempting to poach sponsors.

Gabehart and Spire have maintained that there was no sharing of confidential information, nor did Gabehart intend to share such information with the organization, as defended in the March 11 filings.

In his declarations, Gabehart insisted that he did not violate the non-compete clause in his separation agreement, but rather, alleged that JGR did not pay him his full compensation covered in the agreement after Nov. 10, accusing the team of his breaching the terms of the agreement itself.

The filings from Spire also included declarations from Dickerson, Towriss and Spire’s team president Bill Anthony.

Dickerson detailed the rise of Spire to the Cup level, appearing to contrast its origins to those of other Cup teams and labeling its trajectory as “a true underdog story,” highlighting the differences between itself and the established JGR operation.

When Gabehart informed Dickerson that he had parted ways with JGR, Dickerson recalled, “On or around Nov. 11, 2025, I told Mr. Gabehart we would be pleased to hire him at Spire if he were released from his contract and did not have any applicable non-compete.”

Dickerson claimed that no one from JGR ever made him aware of any non-compete clause beyond one week that Gabehart was held to and that he was under the impression that Gabehart was no longer employed by JGR starting on Nov 10., considering Gabehart’s claims that he stopped receiving payment that day.

Furthermore, Dickerson maintained that Gabehart’s duties at Spire as its Chief Operating Officer were distinct from his responsibilities at JGR. Gabehart and Spire also supported this by outlining Gabehart’s role in their filings.

One of the more notable claims made in Dickerson’s statement centered around an apparent trade between JGR and Spire in 2025. In his declaration, Dickerson said that Spire agreed to mutually terminate the contract of Robert Smith, who was the car chief for the team’s No. 7 entry, so he could move over to help Ty Gibbs. In return, Dickerson claimed that JGR was supposed to send one of its employees that Spire would identify or pay $100,000 as an alternative.

However, Dickerson alleged that JGR rejected two employees that Spire inquired about and that it never paid the fee in its place.

Dickerson went on to claim that Spire never asked for or wanted the confidential information that JGR accused Gabehart of possessing, expressing disappointment at JGR’s allegations.

“This lawsuit is an effort to stifle Spire as it attempts to build a team that, one day,
could rack up the number of wins that JGR touts,” Dickerson said in the declaration. “Rather than allowing that competition to play out on the track and rather than considering what brought JGR here in the first place, JGR has chosen to attack, disparage and demean Spire.”