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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Joe Gibbs Racing on Thursday filed suit against former competition director Chris Gabehart for allegedly embarking on “a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information” for the benefit of a rival NASCAR team Spire Motorsports.
The suit filed in the Western District of North Carolina — the same court that heard last December’s antitrust suit between 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports against NASCAR — claims Gabehart violated his contract and stole confidential team trade secrets when “his demands for additional authority were rebuffed by JGR’s owner.”
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The suit alleges Gabehart caused more than $8 million in damages to JGR.
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 in that role was responsible for all competitive aspects of the race team, and as such, had access to all of JGR’s proprietary information.
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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.
From…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/joe-gibbs-racing-sues-ex-222839184.html
Author : JENNA FRYER
Publish date : 2026-02-19 22:28:00
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