Until November 10, 2025, Defendant was one of JGR’s most senior executives with respect to all competitive aspects of the company. After his requests for additional authority were denied by JGR’s owner, Defendant immediately embarked on a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor to NASCAR – Spire Motorsports. In this action, JGR seeks to recover its substantial damages and enjoin the defendant from breaching its contractual obligations and unlawfully using JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets.
The text above comes from the introduction of a lawsuit brought by Joe Gibbs Racing against former competition director Chris Gabehart on Thursday in North Carolina’s Western District.
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Based on information and belief, Defendant used JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets that he had stolen from JGR regarding the compensation JGR had paid to its employees by soliciting and recruiting JGR employees to leave the Company’s employment and begin working for Spire.
The suit is brought under the “Trade Secret Defense Act” which creates a private right of action for “(an) owner of a misappropriated trade secret…if the trade secret relates to a product or service used or intended for use in interstate or foreign commerce.”
The lawsuit says Gabehart caused damages in excess of $8,000,000, but it is up to the jury to decide compensation if the case goes to court.
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Over 30 pages, the lawsuit details a timeline in which Gabehart received the opportunity from Spire Motorsports to become motorsports director while participating in an alleged scheme to use proprietary information from JGR in that role.
This includes what JGR said: Gabehart was syncing his personal Google Drive with his team’s laptop. This laptop contained a folder named “Spire”, photos of exclusive team information such as salaries, setups, performance analyzes of the drivers, crew chief and pit crews.
The lawsuit claims Gaebhart accessed those records even as he was negotiating a severance settlement and one day met with Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson. It was at this point, on December 15, that JGR declared that it had ended negotiations on a separation plan and issued a ceasefire.
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The team also conducted a forensic study of Gabehart’s electronics, which ultimately formed the basis of this trial.
Gabehart earned a base salary of $1,000,000 last season in his first year since taking over as competition director after more than a decade with the team as an engineer and then crew chief. This agreement also provided for a performance bonus.
This is consistent with his contract, which was also included as an exhibit at trial, as JGR states that Gabehart violated their employment contract. This violation includes Section 5, detailed in italics below.
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During the Term and so long as such Confidential Information is not generally known (except as a result of a breach by Employee), Employee shall not disclose Confidential Information to any third party or use Confidential Information for any purpose other than that necessary for the performance of this Agreement, unless and until such Confidential Information becomes generally known, except as a result of unauthorized disclosure.
That being said, Joe Gibbs Racing said Gabehart had expressed dissatisfaction with his role “during the 2025 season” and indeed wanted a promotion.
He wanted complete accountability and control over all departments supporting JGR’s competition efforts instead of working with other departments supporting JGR’s competition efforts as peers. …Eventually, defendant’s dissatisfaction reached a boiling point and he requested a meeting with JGR owner Joe Gibbs to express his demands. Coach Gibbs agreed to meet with Defendant on November 6, 2025. During this meeting, Defendant requested additional working authority that would give him carte blanche on all racing decisions.
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Coach Gibbs declined to offer these responsibilities to Gabehart on November 6 and asked him if he wanted to remain competition director or leave. The lawsuit says Gabehart told Gibbs he “would rather” leave JGR. It was at this time that JGR began to prepare the separation program and the conditions for his employment elsewhere.
This first proposal arrived on November 10, and again, all italicized text comes from the legal deposit.
Under these terms, defendant would have been permitted to work for another NASCAR team, provided he agreed not to solicit key employees and contractors and cooperated in the return of JGR equipment and information.
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During the negotiations, defendant’s attorney made repeated changes to the draft agreement, which appeared calculated to allow him to immediately solicit JGR employees to leave JGR.
It was also at this time that JGR learned that Gabehart had personally met with Dickerson. This made JGR “suspicious”. Gabehart agreed on Dec. 17 to turn over any information about the team, but objected to a forensic examination.
The defendant said the “Spire” folder on his Google Drive “was used to store his own personal notes and files.” It was wrong. The defendant also stated that he “failed to maintain records regarding JGR’s sensitive financial data.” This was also false because the photos taken by the defendant on November 7, 2025 contained a significant amount of sensitive financial information.
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Gabehart and Gibbs continued to negotiate on this issue. Gabehart said, according to JGR’s legal filing, that Spire’s offer “was not intended to provide services similar to those it provided to JGR.” Both parties ultimately agreed to a forensic protocol in which a third-party expert identify JGR information on these devices; and (c) securely delete confirmed JGR information.
Gabehart provided his devices to this examiner on January 12, and the examiner provided the files to JGR’s attorney on January 27. The files were deleted from Gabehart’s devices on February 4.
On February 11, JGR first learned that Gabehart’s role at Spire would be responsible for its entire racing strategy and operations.
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This was new information for JGR, since the defendant had already told JGR on December 17, 2025 that the job offer he received from Spire was for a role in which he would not provide to Spire services similar to the services he provided to JGR.
JGR then concluded that Gabehart refused to submit to the initial forensic examination because “This would demonstrate that Defendant disclosed JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets to third parties, including Spire.
The lawsuit constructs a timeline in which Gabehart met with Gibbs on November 6 and concluded that he preferred to leave JGR. And then, at 2:45 p.m. the next day, Gabehart accessed his company laptop while it was connected to JGR’s network and accessed “JGR’s most sensitive information.” confidential information and trade secrets and, using his personal cell phone, took at least twenty photos of his laptop screen (the “November 7 Photos”).
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The filing says the photos were saved to Gabehart’s home phone and personal Google Photos account. What did these photos contain?
Comprehensive post-race audit and analysis of team and driver performance for the entire 2025 NASCAR season; Complete team payroll details, including job titles, contract length, annual compensation, incentive compensation, and previous years’ compensation plans; An employee compensation calculator used to project and plan compensation for key JGR positions; Driver compensation for the 2025 and 2026 NASCAR seasons; Revenues from sponsors, partners and other commercial agreements for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 NASCAR seasons; JGR Pit Crew Analytics for the 2024 NASCAR Season; And Detailed analyzes of race car tires used to assess impact on race results.
There was also all kinds of other exclusive team information synced to Gaebart’s personal accounts and he opened those documents one day when he met with Dickerson.
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Defendant accessed and interacted with the Spire File on December 12, 13, 15, 23, 25, 26, 27, and 2, 2025, the same day he met with Jeff Dickerson.
The case was assigned to Judge Matthew E. Orso, who also currently oversees the Kyle Busch against Continuation of life in the Pacific. The next legal step would be for Gabehart to file a response with the court.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s complaint can be read in full below.
JGR lawsuit against Chris Gabehart by nickdegroot89
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