{"id":498793,"date":"2026-02-25T15:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498793\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T15:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:23:10","slug":"joe-gibbs-racing-amends-lawsuit-against-former-competition-director-adds-spire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/498793\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Gibbs Racing amends lawsuit against former competition director, adds Spire"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Joe Gibbs Racing has amended a recent lawsuit the NASCAR team filed against a former key employee to include a competing NASCAR team, Spire Motorsports, alleging Spire accepted illegally obtained proprietary information from the former employee and the defendants\u2019 actions were \u201cimmoral, unethical and unscrupulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amendment was filed Tuesday and includes JGR seeking a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunctive relief against Chris Gabehart, who had served as JGR\u2019s competition director during the 2025 NASCAR season and had been a longtime employee of the company owned by Super Bowl-winning head coach Joe Gibbs.<\/p>\n

Last week, JGR sued Gabehart<\/a> in U.S. District Court in the Western District of North Carolina. Its lawsuit states Gabehart \u201cembarked on a brazen scheme to steal JGR\u2019s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor in NASCAR \u2014 Spire Motorsports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial filing did not include Spire nor did JGR seek to prohibit Gabehart from immediately working for the team. Now, JGR is asking for a permanent injunction directing Gabehart to \u201ccease and desist working or performing any services for Spire similar to those he provided to JGR for the 18 months following February 9, 2026,\u201d in addition to cease and desist using, sharing, copying or transferring any proprietary information rightfully belonging to JGR.<\/p>\n

The amended filing comes just days after Spire made it public that Gabehart had joined the team as its chief motorsports officer. What the position entails is a point of contention from JGR, claiming Gabehart\u2019s role at Spire is similar in nature to his role with them as competitor director. JGR first learned this news on Feb. 11, then sued Gabehart the next week.<\/p>\n

Spire is named as a defendant because JGR alleges Spire is benefiting from Gabehart\u2019s \u201cmisappropriation of trade secrets\u201d and \u201cthe competitive information he has used and improperly retained will give Spire a competitive advantage in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reached by The Athletic, Spire Motorsports declined to comment.<\/p>\n

In both JGR filings, the team goes into great detail about how Gabehart enacted a scheme to steal confidential trade secrets after Gibbs declined Gabehart\u2019s request to have \u201ccarte blanche authority\u201d at JGR over all aspects of competition matters.<\/p>\n

JGR also alleges Gabehart did not disclose in due course that he had spoken to Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson nor that he had been offered a job at Spire. JGR did not learn of these conversations until a forensic analysis was conducted on Gabehart\u2019s company-issued laptop. It also discovered Gabehart had \u201crepeatedly conducted Google searches and online research about Spire during October and November of 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further results of the forensic analysis, JGR claims, revealed that Gabehart had created a folder labeled \u201cSpire,\u201d a subfolder labeled \u201cpast setups\u201d and a multitude of documents, photographs and spreadsheets, all of which are proprietary information owned by JGR and include what JGR says is \u201csensitive financial data.\u201d<\/p>\n

All told, JGR alleges Gabehart caused more than $8 million in damages to the team.<\/p>\n

Gabehart has not worked for JGR since Nov. 10, 2025, JGR stated in its claim. Included in Tuesday\u2019s filing is a termination of employment letter sent to Gabehart on Feb. 9, 2026, and signed by Gibbs, stating Gabehart had \u201cviolated his contractual obligations, company policy, and state and federal law, in addition to being an act involving moral turpitude, fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, and\/or dishonesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gabehart is highly regarded inside the NASCAR garage. He first joined JGR in 2012, beginning as an engineer before eventually being promoted to crew chief for one of JGR\u2019s four teams in NASCAR\u2019s premier Cup Series. In his six years working with JGR driver Denny Hamlin from 2019 to 2024, the duo won 22 races, including two Daytona 500s, and ranked second-best in wins and laps led. Gabehart was then elevated to competition director following the 2024 season.<\/p>\n

In a statement Gabehart posted Friday on X<\/a>, he denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate to the court that I have not shared JGR confidential information with anyone,\u201d Gabehart wrote. \u201cIn fact, I have already demonstrated that to JGR. A third-party forensic expert retained by JGR recently examined my laptop, cell phone and personal Google Drive and found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in JGR\u2019s lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin, who also co-owns the Cup team 23XI Racing, explained Monday on his \u201cActions Detrimental\u201d podcast the degree to which teams will go in order to protect proprietary information due to the razor-thin margins between winning and losing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure Joe Gibbs Racing has spent tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decades, coming up with what they think is the right answer every weekend, and they deserve to protect that,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s awfully disappointing to see two people that you\u2019ve cared for at odds right now. But, listen, if Joe Gibbs Racing is willing to go to court, I think they\u2019re pretty serious, I\u2019ll say that. Joe ain\u2019t looking to fight anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. \u2014 Joe Gibbs Racing has amended a recent lawsuit the NASCAR team filed against a former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,12716,634,82],"class_list":["post-498793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}