Joe Gibbs Racing seeks restraining order to block Chris Gabehart from joining Spire

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Joe Gibbs Racing on Tuesday night asked for a restraining order preventing former competition director Chris Gabehart from working for Spire Motorsports. JGR also added Spire as a defendant in the lawsuit accusing Gabehart of embarking on “a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information.”

The amendment filed in the Western District of North Carolina asks that Gabehart be prevented from working for another NASCAR team in the same capacity he worked for JGR for 18 months.

The suit alleges Gabehart violated his contract and stole confidential team trade secrets when “his demands for additional authority were rebuffed by JGR’s owner." JGR claims Gabehart has caused more than $8 million in damages to JGR.

JGR's initial filing last week did not request an injunction preventing Gabehart from working for Spire, or name Spire as a defendant in the suit.

Spire said it would have a response to the amended filing on Wednesday.

JGR was founded by Joe Gibbs in 1992 after he won three Super Bowls as Washington’s football coach. Gibbs is a member of both the Pro Football Hall of Fame and NASCAR Hall of Fame and now co-owns JGR with his daughter-in-law, Heather. The team fields Cup cars for Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, Ty Gibbs and Denny Hamlin.

Gabehart joined JGR in 2012 as an engineer, worked his way to crew chief for Hamlin, and became competition director ahead of the 2025 season. Gabehart spent six seasons as Hamlin's crew chief and the duo won 22 Cup races — two of which were the Daytona 500 — and qualified for the championship finale three times.

Hamlin finished fifth or better in six seasons under Gabehart, while Hamlin's wins and laps-led were second best in the Cup Series during that period.

The lawsuit claims Gabehart throughout last season wanted complete responsibility and control over all competition departments and asked Joe Gibbs in a Nov. 6, 2025, meeting for “carte blanche authority over all racing decisions.”

The suit said Gibbs denied the request and Gabehart said he wanted to leave the organization. In the course of negotiating a separation agreement, JGR alleges it learned Gabehart had been meeting with Spire Motorsports, which triggered the organization to do a forensic analysis of Gabehart’s team-issued laptop.

“The results were shocking,” the suit alleges, claiming it found Google searches about Spire in October and November of last year, folders titled “Spire” and “Past Setups” and more than a dozen images of JGR files containing confidential information and trade secrets.

The amended filing says Gabehart has not worked for JGR since Nov. 10, 2025, and turned in his laptop at that time.

JGR alleges it learned on Feb. 11 that Gabehart planned to become the chief motorsports officer at Spire, where he would be responsible for all of Spire’s racing strategy and operations. JGR’s amended filing includes a Feb. 9 termination of employment letter with Gabehart.

Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson first confirmed he had hired Gabehart last weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

JGR contends Gabehart knew his actions accessing JGR materials was unlawful and he took intentional steps to avoid detection and hide his digital trail. The amendment claims Gabehart had knowledge of the forensic process because of another 2024 incident in which a former JGR employee illegally took information to a rival race team.

While that 2024 incident is widely known throughout the industry, JGR has never before publicly acknowledged it and did not take legal action against that former employee.

Cary Davis, the attorney representing Gabehart, has said he can not comment on the suit. Gabehart on social media last week called the claims “frivolous and retaliatory” and said a third-party expert had examined his laptop, cell phone and 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.”

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