Here’s What Happened in the JGR vs. Chris Gabebart/Spire Lawsuit This Week (April 4-10)

The ongoing lawsuit of Joe Gibbs Racing versus it’s ex-competition director Chris Gabehart, as well as Spire Motorsports continued into its sixth week, with all three parties producing filings. The case is being presided over by Judge Susan C. Rodriguez of the Western District of North Carolina.

JGR alleges that Gabehart, who left the team in November 2025, took several photos and documents containing JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets, then proceeded to misappropriate it by sharing it with Spire Motorsports for the benefit of its performance.

Gabehart and Spire both maintain that the information was not transferred, and that JGR breached Gabehart’s contract by terminating him without cause, violating his non-compete agreement and not compensating him fully.

Last week, JGR filed a second motion for expedited discovery. In its request, JGR is seeking to obtain documents and communication between Gabehart and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson about Gabehart’s employment, as well as texts that Gabehart deleted from his phone.

JGR also requested a subpoena of Dickerson’s personal devices to see when he activated an auto-delete feature on his devices. Additionally, it requested subpoenas of several other team executives in the Cup Series, including Joe Custer, Justin Marks, Todd Meredith, Rick Ware and Tommy Baldwin.

If you’ve missed what has transpired in the past week, Frontstretch has you covered with a recap below.

Read all of Frontstretch’s content covering the JGR vs. Gabehart/Spire lawsuit here

• In a Wednesday filing (April 8), Gabehart requested that the Court deny JGR’s second motion for expedited discovery, as well as its third-party subpoenas. Gabehart’s support for this was that the Court has already addressed the issues JGR raised in the motion, and that the request would “expand expedited discovery well beyond the narrow scope the court previously authorized,” the filing stated.

• Gabehart called JGR “desperate,” and accused the team of not producing evidence that he disclosed confidential information despite a series of motions.

• Gabehart also addressed his disclosure of deleted texts to Dickerson that occurred on Nov. 15, 2025, a point of contention that JGR has targeted in its recent filings. However, Gabehart maintained that he voluntarily disclosed the deletion, informed the court in a timely manner and is trying to recover the deleted texts.

• In his argument for deleting the texts, Gabehart said that there was no threat of litigation at the time of the deletion, pointing to previous court cases that show “When an employee departing on amicable terms has not yet even begun substantive negotiations over a separation agreement, by no objective measure is litigation ‘reasonably anticipated.'” Gabehart said that he had not provided comments to the initial separation agreement given to him by JGR until Nov. 18.

• Additionally, Gabehart stated that while efforts to recover the texts are ongoing, he provided a spreadsheet he created on Nov. 13 that contained information about his Spire offer relevant to the context of the texts.

• Gabehart also argued that by volunteering to undergo a forensic investigation of his phone and cloud accounts, he proved that he had nothing to hide. He contested that if he had deleted texts that shared confidential information, “surely [Gabehart] would have deleted the files themselves from his phone and Google Drive at the same time.”

• In response to JGR’s subpoenas of other race teams’ executives, Dickerson’s personal devices, and both his and Gabehart’s cellular providers, Gabehart contested that the request for discovery exceeds the previously granted discovery, and that it is not a “narrowly tailored” discovery. Gabehart also called the motion “a fishing expedition dressed up as urgency.”

• Furthermore, Gabehart accused three of JGR’s requests in its motion of targeting Dickerson and Spire rather than himself on the assumption that Gabehart “destroyed evidence.” Gabehart maintained that his texts were deleted without ill intent, and that the accusation doesn’t serve as relevant means for discovery against Dickerson.

• Gabehart argued that JGR contradicted itself by seeking discovery on Dickerson’s devices, recalling that the organization opposed Gabehart’s request for reciprocal discovery of select JGR personnel devices, where it argued third-party devices “should be excluded from expedited discovery,” the filing states.

• Should the court grant third-party discovery of Dickerson’s devices, Gabehart requested reciprocal discovery on the devices of JGR executives Heather Gibbs, Eric Schaeffer, Dave Alpern and Toni Rogers, citing them as key players in his termination and pursuit of a litigation.

• Gabehart stated that not only would he be open to a third-party subpoena of his cellular provider, but that he would issue the subpoena himself, as he has already reached out to his provider to recover the deleted texts.

• However, Gabehart objected to JGR’s requested time frame to obtain calls or texts between the two. JGR’s requested window to obtain such communications spanned from Oct. 1, 2025 through March 13, 2026. Gabehart argued that because he deleted the texts in Nov., and that his texts have been preserved in both January and March, the time frame is too broad. As a result, this is where Gabehart’s request to subpoena his cellular provider himself derives from.

• In the closing sections of his filing, Gabehart objected to JGR’s requested subpoena of fellow team executives.

• Gabehart justified this by stating “the Court has already addressed and rejected a prior identical request from JGR, and JGR offers no new information to justify this extraordinary second request.”

• Gabehart pointed to JGR initially alleging that Spire had shared confidential information with other teams on the basis of “garage chatter,” but Gabehart refuted JGR’s continued beliefs by labeling those as “speculation.”

• On Thursday (April 9), Spire opened its filing by quickly labeling JGR’s second motion for expedited discovery as a “run-of-the-mill discovery dispute about text messages,” rather than protecting its “crown jewels” and “secret sauce.”

• Spire echoed Gabehart’s accusations that JGR has not presented any new or credible evidence that Gabehart or Spire have transferred and shared any confidential information.

• The team pointed to the fact that it has locked Gabehart out of its systems, offered to issue a subpoena to a cellular carrier and enlisted a forensic examiner to conduct a full examination of the devices and accounts of key Spire employees, yet JGR has “refused to disclose what—if any—documentary evidence preservation protocols it has instituted,” the filing reads.

• Spire stated that JGR’s initial lawsuit only alleged that Gabehart had misappropriated its trade secrets, yet, has looped Spire and Dickerson into the lawsuit since then.

• While a reason for JGR’s request for discovery is to discover when Dickerson activated an auto-delete feature on his phone, Spire said that he changed the settings on his phone to retain messages indefinitely shortly after receiving counsel on Feb. 26. A few days later, Spire claimed it issued litigation holds to employees to preserve any relevant documents or communications.

• Included in the forensic examiner’s review were Dickerson’s cell phone and iPad, as well as Gabehart’s Spire laptop.

• After Judge Rodriguez granted JGR limited discovery on Gabehart only, Spire said the team reached out to it on March 24 to inform it that JGR interned to seek discovery on Dickerson. Spire said it refused, then informed JGR that the messages it wanted from Dickerson did not exist on his devices.

• Spire alleged that as a result, JGR issued its second motion for expedited discovery, one that Spire recalled was denied in the initial hearing for expedited discovery on March 16.

• Like Gabehart, Spire is seeking avenues to recover the deleted texts, though its forensic examiner said that texts preceding Jan. 21 were not recoverable. Spire said it would also subpoena Dickerson’s cellular provider for text and call logs, but JGR has refused to allow it to do so unless Spire consents to the subpoena of the other race team executives.

• Spire contested that JGR has yet to present “good cause” for expedited discovery, and it will not suffer irreparable harm from “waiting for ordinary merits discovery.”

• Similar to Gabehart, Spire said the request for discovery is not narrowly tailored, with the only exception being the request for discovery from Gabehart’s and Dickerson’s cellular providers, which both agreed to voluntarily subpoena.

• Spire also objected to JGR’s request for documents referring to its confidential information. “Likewise, JGR’s requests for documents “referring to or relating to” JGR’s confidential information do not bear on the contents or recoverability of the deleted messages but instead go to the merits of JGR’s restrictive covenant claims and belong in ordinary discovery,” the filing stated.

• In response to JGR’s requested subpoenas of additional race team executives, Spire refuted this by stating the request “is even further afield from its stated goal of locating and recovering missing text messages.”

• Spire labeled the subpoenas as “speculative and illogical,” arguing the only merit for the claims is the fact that each of those teams were fellow Chevrolet organizations.

• “JGR knows that serving subpoenas (with no evidentiary basis) on leaders of competing teams will deliver a message throughout the industry. The Court should not become a surrogate for JGR’s turf war,” Spire’s filing stated.

• Spire also requested that if JGR is granted discovery, it should be granted reciprocal discovery to see if any JGR employees have destroyed relevant communications, and that “JGR’s owners and employees submit to third-party discovery of communications stored on their personal devices.”

• Spire’s merit for the request is its claims that JGR has refused to disclose if any of its employees have deleted relevant texts, “had retention policies of less than one-year enabled on those devices at any time after November 11, 2025,” or changed retention policies from the moment litigation was anticipated.

• While Gabehart requested discovery on the devices of a few of JGR’s executives, Spire requested discovery on the devices of even more personnel, including Joe Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, Tim Carmichael, Todd Berrier and Walter Brown.

• On the same day as Spire’s filing, JGR filed a proposed pretrial order and case management plan.

• JGR continued to tackle the heart of the case in its opening section: that Gabehart took photos and documents with the team’s confidential information and trade secrets, then allegedly shared it with Spire for the benefit of the team’s performance during the 2026 Cup Series season.

• Gabehart has admitted to taking such information, but he maintains that he did not share it with Spire.

• JGR then recounted the order of events that have taken place between past filings and court hearings, referencing the fact that Gabehart is under a temporary restraining order that prohibits him from performing similar duties at Spire to his former role at JGR.

• In the filing, JGR proposed an expedited trial date for Nov. 16, 2026, as well as a schedule for document exchange and production for both parties.

• This modification is intended to ensure that document discovery is exchanged sufficiently in advance of depositions, allowing the parties to conduct depositions based on a further developed documentary record and reducing the likelihood of incomplete testimony, follow‐on depositions, or discovery disputes,” the filing stated.

• JGR stated that the Court has authority to schedule an expedited trial and that there is “good cause” for doing so.

• JGR repeated that “the risk of continued misuse and disclosure of JGR’s confidential information remains immediate and consequential,” stating that it would suffer irreparable harm as a result. The team also stated that not if the trial isn’t scheduled in a timely manner, it can leave it vulnerable to “forever lose its competitive business advantage.”

• In further support of its proposed trial date, JGR presented the argument that Gabehart and Spire would benefit from the proposed schedule

• “An expedited trial avoids the prolonged uncertainty that Defendants face as a result of the ongoing interim relief, or additional interim relief the Court may order as the case unfolds,” JGR presented in the filing.