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Icon Sportswire\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\nAfter a 35-minute recess Thursday afternoon, a federal judge said she needed more time before ruling on Joe Gibbs Racing\u2019s request for a preliminary injunction against the team\u2019s former competition director Chris Gabehart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to dig my teeth into this,\u201d US District Judge Susan C. Rodriguez said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for the court to get this right. There is a livelihood and there are businesses on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez said she would issue her ruling \u201cas quickly as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related Story<\/p>\n
JGR has requested a preliminary injunction against Chris Gabehart and Spire Motorsports, who hired Gabehart as its chief motorsports officer, so the status quo can be maintained until the case goes to trial. A temporary restraining order that prevents Gabehart from performing duties at Spire Motorsports that overlap with the ones he had during his 17 years at JGR was extended to April 9. <\/p>\n
During Thursday\u2019s six-hour day, attorneys for both sides reiterated statements concerning:<\/p>\n
Gabehart taking trade secrets, the \u201ccrown jewels\u201d from JGR to give to Spire.Spire\u2019s hiring of Gabehart to get the \u201ccrown jewels\u201d so the team could take a \u201cshort cut\u201d to being a successful race team.Spire saying it doesn\u2019t have any of JGR\u2019s information and it doesn\u2019t want it.Spire and Gabehart\u2019s attorneys contending JGR breached its contract with Gabehart first and therefore, the 18-month no-compete clause JGR wants against Gabehart cannot be enforced.Icon Sportswire\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin with his then-crew chief Chris Gabehart in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we told the court today, it\u2019s really easy to make an allegation, and frankly, it\u2019s been disappointing in this case the way that Joe Gibbs Racing has made these extreme allegations without backing it up with any actual evidence,\u201d Spire Motorsports attorney Lawrence Cameron said outside the federal courthouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of this case\u2026 JGR alleged that we had stolen their secret sauce. That they knew Spire encouraged the stealing of JGR\u2019s secret sauce. What\u2019s been discussed in court today and in the court filings is essentially a spreadsheet with some publicly available data. There\u2019s just no evidence to support those allegations against Spire. Spire doesn\u2019t want their data, didn\u2019t ask for their data and doesn\u2019t need their data.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important for the court to get this right. There is a livelihood and there are businesses on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the attorneys\u2019 presentations, Rodriguez often asked where the \u201chard evidence\u201d was because the items they were presenting was circumstantial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to get down where the rubber meets the road, no pun intended,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI want to get to the meat.\u201d <\/p>\n
In describing the items JRG claims Gabehart took, attorney Thomas Melsheimer noted it wasn\u2019t motivational sayings such as, \u201cIt\u2019s better to fly with the eagles than run around with the turkeys.\u201d <\/p>\n
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Samuel Corum\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
RCR driver Austin Dillon won in Richmond in 2025.<\/p>\n
There had been speculation that JGR filed the lawsuit against Gabehart because they didn\u2019t challenge a former employee who moved to Richard Childress Racing and took JGR\u2019s Richmond setups with him. RCR has won the last two Richmond races with Austin Dillon. However, Melsheimer said outside the courthouse that wasn\u2019t the reason the lawsuit was filed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re pursuing it because it\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d Melsheimer said. \u201cThey\u2019re protecting their hard-earned investments, their property, the things they developed. No other reason. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis case is important because it\u2019s our property, it\u2019s our trade secrets, our confidential information. That\u2019s all we\u2019re trying to protect. We\u2019re trying to hold Mr. Gabehart to his promise that he made to us, and we\u2019re trying to protect our information.\u201d <\/p>\n
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A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com<\/a>, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association\u2019s sports feature category.\u00a0 During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication\u2019s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a 35-minute recess Thursday afternoon, a federal judge said she needed more time before ruling on Joe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,217545,784,1642,634,217544,82,183339],"class_list":["post-563842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-e5f374ff-0ffd-497c-af4c-28d7738dcc35","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-jgr-trade-secrets-case-judge-wants-hard-evidence","tag-sports","tag-subsection-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563842","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=563842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}