Joe Gibbs Racing on Thursday filed a lawsuit against former competition director Chris Gabehart. The NASCAR team alleges that he “embarked on a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor in NASCAR—Spire Motorsports.”

As for what’s next, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic said in a Dirty Mo Media video that cases like this typically end in a settlement. It remains to be seen if that will, in fact, happen in this particular case.

“Where things go from here is a bit unknown. This lawsuit was filed in the Western District of North Carolina, the same court system that Michael Jordan and Bob Jenkins and their respective teams, 23XI and Front Row Motorsports, filed their lawsuit against NASCAR. Obviously, that case went to court and there was a trial. We don’t know if this case against Gabehart is gonna get that far, we’ll see,” Bianchi said. “Often in these situations, a settlement is reached, the parties agree to different terms and everyone goes their separate ways.”

According to the lawsuit, Gabehart allegedly sought “carte blanche authority over all racing decisions” at JGR and when rebuffed by team owner Joe Gibbs, made known he wanted out. Gabehart’s last day at JGR was Nov. 10, eight days after the 2025 season came to an end. As is standard when an employee leaves the company, Gabehart was ordered to hand over his computer and JGR conducted a forensic analysis.

Through the analysis, JGR allegedly discovered that Gabehart had access to confidential and proprietary information. Gabehart allegedly used his personal cell phone to take photos of his laptop screen “in order to conceal that he was accessing and taking JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets.”

Additionally, a Google Drive was found that had a folder titled “Spire” and a subfolder titled “Past Setups.” Gabehart was found to have had meetings with Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson, which JGR was unaware of. He notified JGR on Dec. 17 that he had been offered a job at Spire, though not as a competition director.

Details pour out on JGR lawsuit against Chris Gabehart

Then, on Feb. 11, JGR learned that Gabehart’s new role with Spire would be as the team’s chief motorsports officer. Feeling the position would be too similar to that of what he did at JGR, the team filed the lawsuit on Thursday.

The lawsuit states that Gabehart has created damages that exceed $8 million. Bianchi projects that the forensic data that JGR allegedly has could play a massive role in how this ultimately ends.

“Basically, they want $8 million for what they believe is information that Gabehart took from them and they want to reimbursed for that,” Bianchi said. “Similar lawsuits have been filed for when an employee has left a NASCAR team under less than ideal circumstances and is going to a different team — those lawsuits often, in many instances, have been resolved and are thrown out completely. We’ll see if this is the case with this one.

“Obviously, with the forensic data that JGR has alleging that Gabehart took information that was proprietary, that may change things a little bit. But that’s where things now stand. Now this is gonna be between the lawyers and determine who is right and who is wrong and if some kind of settlement can be reached.”