Joe Gibbs Racing has amended its lawsuit against Chris Gabehart and has now expanded its claims against Spire Motorsports while also asking the Western District of North Carolina to enforce a restraining order to prevent the duo from continuing to work together.
Spire Motorsports confirmed this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway that it has hired Gabehart, a longtime engineer turned crew chief and competition director for a year at Joe Gibbs Racing, as director of motorsports.
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JGR sued Gabehart last week, alleging a violation of non-compete agreements and a “brazen scheme” to steal proprietary competition trade secrets and take them with him to Spire when de facto promotion offers were turned down by team owner Joe Gibbs.
Joe Gibbs Racing claims Gabehart created a folder titled “Spire” from his work computer and synced information from the team database to his personal Google Drive. The team claims Gabehart took photos of the configuration information on his personal phone with the intention of taking it with him to Speyer.
He accused Gabehart of accessing JGR’s database the same day he met Jeff Dickerson, co-owner of the Spire Motorsports team. During the first week of the litigation, JGR had not named Spire as a defendant, but did so Tuesday evening with the amended filing.
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The new claims against Spire are detailed below, exact quotes from the filing, italicized for clarity:
“Spire knowingly, intentionally, wrongfully, and in bad faith induced Gabehart to breach his contract with JGR by (1) soliciting and hiring him to work for Spire, and/or (2) requesting, encouraging, or otherwise inducing him to disclose or use Plaintiff’s trade secrets or confidential information.
“As a direct and proximate result of Spire’s misconduct, Plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer damages, the amount of which must be proven at trial, as well as irreparable harm through, among other things, loss of competitive advantage and loss of confidential information. »
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As part of the expanded lawsuit, Joe Gibbs Racing is asking the court for a restraining order that prevents Gabehart from working at Spire Motorsports, even if it is in a similar capacity to his role as competition director last year, but also from deploying any “trade secrets” acquired during his tenure with his previous employer. JGR is asking the court to force Gabehart to return any proprietary material he may have in his possession.
Joe Gibbs Racing states in the documents that it will suffer irreparable harm due to the use of Gabehart and the alleged data he took with him to Spire to replicate their setups due to the competitive similarity of each’s NextGen cars.
“Since all teams now race the same car and obtain their components from the same suppliers, understanding only a small part of the details of how a competitor configures its cars would allow other teams to extrapolate this information and recreate a successful car configuration.
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“As a result, car setup, analysis and race strategy have become increasingly important as competitive differentiators in NASCAR since the introduction of the NextGen car in 2022. This information is highly confidential.
“Therefore, such misuse, disclosure or dissemination of JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets would result in impairment of competitive ability, loss of profits and business opportunities, and reputational harm, among other harms.” »
The full amended filing can be found below with additional details below.
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JGR against Gabehart, Speyer by mattweavermedia
In filing the motion for injunction and restraining order, Joe Gibbs Racing also stated that neither Spire nor Gabehart voluntarily consented and therefore both will have to be issued by Judge Matthew Orso.
“JGR’s counsel has conferred with Gabehart’s counsel regarding the relief sought in the Motion, and Gabehart’s counsel has indicated that Gabehart does not consent to the relief sought in the Motion. Likewise, JGR has conferred with Spire regarding the relief sought in the Motion, and Spire does not consent to the relief sought in the Motion.”
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The restraining order and motion for injunction can be found below, with additional information below.
2 24 2026 Motion for restraining order by mattweavermedia
The amended complaint and motion for restraining order also included written statements from JGR’s chief competition officer, Wally Brown, who returned to the role he held before briefly handing it over to Gabehart last year, and from CFO Tim Carmichael.
The third statement is from Clark C. Walton, a “forensic expert for Reliance Forensics and a licensed attorney who was retained by JGR for the Gabehart case and oversaw the analysis of the records that led to this trial.”
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Walton said his company observed the following Google search history
Additionally, Walton cited the following findings:
“Reliance also observed synchronized activity on the JGR computer related to a Google Drive account associated with Gabehart’s personal Gmail address. The known synchronized Google Drive appears to have been synchronized with the JGR computer. The known synchronized Google Drive account contained a folder named “Spire” which contained a subfolder named “Past Configurations.” Reliance did not access the contents of the known, synchronized Google Drive account itself as part of its initial examination of the JGR computer. Reliance did not access the contents of the known, synchronized Google Drive account itself as part of its initial examination of the JGR computer. observed interactions with Spire Folder on November 12, 13, 15, 23, 25, 26, 27, and December 2, 2025, as noted below. The Last View Time listed on this report generally indicates the time a folder was last opened.
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Walton detailed alleged access to “https://apps.jgrcloud.com/,” “https://analytics.joegibbsracing.com,” “https://joegibbsracing-my.sharepoint.com,” and “https://trdhydra.toyota.com/” between mid- and late November.
The report details the times an unknown account and an account associated with what appears to be Gabehart’s personal email address accessed JGR’s database.
Walton’s full statement can be found below.
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2 24 2026 Walton Declaration by mattweavermedia
Read also:
Chris Gabehart ‘categorically denies’ lawsuit allegations against Joe Gibbs Racing
Joe Gibbs Racing also responded to Gabehart’s statement which “categorically denied” the allegations.
“The statement was materially false and misleading. First, the forensic expert hired by JGR confirmed that defendant took JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets, including financial information that Gabehart expressly denied taking on December 17, 2025.
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“Second, the forensic expert informed Gabehart through his attorney that the examination did not demonstrate that Gabehart did not share JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets with third parties or save the documents that Gabehart took to different locations. Indeed, the forensic examination team noted that the examination “did not rule out the possibility that (JGR) files were emailed from from a web portal, sent via SMS, then deleted the message, shared directly via Google Photos or any other file sharing site.
Gabehart said he would file a response in the coming days.
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