Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has amended its recent lawsuit filing against former Competition Director Chris Gabehart to include rival NASCAR Cup Series organization Spire Motorsports, dishing out allegations that the organization accepted the illegally obtained information provided by Gabehart.
The championship-winning organization says that both Gabehart and Spire Motorsports’ actions were “immoral, unethical, and unscrupulous”.
Gabehart was first named in a lawsuit from Joe Gibbs Racing on February 19, with allegations that the long-time crew chief and newly-named Competition Director had engaged in a “brazen scheme” to take information from JGR and funnel it directly to his new place of employment — Spire Motorsports.
The new amendment naming Spire Motorsports as a co-defendant was filed on Tuesday and includes Joe Gibbs Racing seeking a temporary restraining order, as well as preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against Gabehart.
When JGR first filed the lawsuit against Gabehart last week, it did not include Spire Motorsports. Over the weekend, though, Spire did confirm that Gabehart had been hired as the team’s Chief Motorsports Officer — a role that the team says isn’t NASCAR-specific. This declaration likely forced Joe Gibbs Racing’s hand in amending the filing.
In the initial filing, Joe Gibbs Racing alleges that Gabehart had been stealing sensitive information from the team to bring to Spire Motorsports, including more than a dozen photos of the screen of his JGR-provided laptop, which contained proprietary information like setup sheets, complete team payroll, comprehensive post-race audits, pit crew analytics, and much more.
The team says that Gabehart also began soliciting employees to leave the organization to move to Spire Motorsports — citing a specific employee who left the team on January 3rd for Spire Motorsports after the team offered him a higher salary than he earned at JGR.
So, what exactly is Joe Gibbs Racing looking for?
The organization is seeking to prohibit Gabehart from working for Spire Motorsports for the next 18 months, beginning on February 9, 2026. Additionally, the team hopes the court will order Gabehart to stop using, sharing, copying, or transferring any proprietary information belonging to JGR.
Unsurprisingly, Joe Gibbs Racing is also asking for its proprietary information, which the team claims has been taken by Gabehart, to be returned to the team promptly.
“I look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate to the Court that I have not shared JGR’s confidential information with anyone. In fact, I have already demonstrated that to JGR,” reads a statement from Gabehart posted to social media on February 20. “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’s lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire’s systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.”
Gabehart has yet to file a legal response, but has 14 days from the time of the lawsuit being filed to do so.
