Here’s What Happened in the JGR vs. Chris Gabehart/Spire Lawsuit This Week (July 10-17)

The lawsuit between Joe Gibbs Racing vs. its ex-competition director Chris Gabehart and Spire Motorsports picked up steam over the past week as more details begin to emerge.

JGR filed the initial lawsuit in February after Gabehart took several photos of its confidential information and trade secrets just days after he and JGR agreed to part ways in November 2025. Gabehart then joined Spire in February after discussions during the off-season, a move in which JGR argues was a breach of Gabehart’s employee agreement and non-compete provision. It also accused Spire of tortious interference with Gabehart’s contract and encouraging him to share and use the confidential information he possessed from JGR.

Two weeks ago, Gabehart and Spire filed countersuits, with Gabehart accusing JGR of not fully compensating him, breaching his separation agreement and trespassing on his personal accounts. Spire alleged that JGR had not satisfied the terms of an apparent trade of employees between the two parties during the 2025 season.

Last week, JGR made the initial move by filing a proposed addendum to a protective order that the sides are already under, one that it argued would increase safeguards on trade secrets and confidential information. Gabehart and Spire both opposed JGR’s motion.

Judge Susan C. Rodriguez is overseeing the case in the Western District of North Carolina. The court was the story of this week’s storyline as Judge Rodriguez set an official trial date for the case.

Continue below to catch up on the latest action. For consolidation purposes. most of the responses between the Defendants come from Gabehart’s filing.

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

• On Thursday (July 16), Judge Rodriguez issued an order to set a trial date for February 1, 2027, nearly three weeks before the Daytona 500.

• Additionally, Judge Rodriguez ordered that the hearing will be a trial date, and she set the timeline for it to last nine days.

• Last Friday (July 10), JGR filed a motion to supplement its request to amend a protective order, which included three tiers: “Confidential,” “Highly Confidential” and “Highly Confidential — OCO,” which is for outside counsel.

• JGR’s initial motion for a protective order was granted by the court in March, which is still in effect.

• JGR claimed that Spire has refused any protocols regarding trade protections, contesting that agreeing to the protocol would protect Spire’s trade secrets too.

• “JGR now moves to incorporate the proposed Trade Secret Addendum … into the Protective Order so that discovery may proceed under safeguards calibrated to the sensitivity of the materials at issue,” the filing read.

• Referring back to the early stages of the case, JGR recalled that the parties submitted a protective order following a March 24 meeting that would protect “sensitive materials” from disclosure.

• JGR also revisited Gabehart taking photos of JGR’s confidential information, sending other files to his device and deleting texts with Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, all which were admitted to by Gabehart’s team. As a result, JGR argued that the showed “it will continue to suffer irreparable harm” without injunctive relief.

• “JGR has identified certain categories of highly sensitive trade secrets — including race car scans, race car setups, aerodynamic configurations, simulation data, engineering data, source code, technical specifications, and testing data — that require additional safeguards beyond mere OCO designations,” the team stated in support of a protective order.

• By placing restrictions on the accessibility of certain materials, JGR is seeking to prevent outside counsel, in-house counsel and competitions from acquiring such information.

• JGR stated it created a proposed “virtual secure room” to take safeguard measures in the accessing, reviewing, and sharing of trade secret materials between the parties. The team also stated it included 235 documents deleted from Gabehart’s personal devices and cloud accounts that contained the trade secrets in question.

• “JGR’s trade secrets, much like many trade secrets, represent years of proprietary development and significant investment. These materials present unique disclosure risks that cannot be mitigated by standard confidentiality designations,” JGR argued in stating it had good cause for a protective order.

• JGR maintained that Spire “could avail itself of the same protections” by agreeing to the protocol.

• “JGR has requested Spire to produce certain race-by-race setups and car scans for each of its three cars in the NASCAR Cup Series. These materials contain significant competitive information necessary to understand the extent to which JGR’s trade secrets have been misappropriated. This is the kind of information the Trade Secrets protocol is designed to protect,” the filing stated.

• One interesting note in the exhibits provided by JGR was that the team requested subpoenas of 21 competition personnel from Spire, including all three of its NASCAR Cup Series teams’ crew chiefs and car chiefs. Spire rejected the subpoenas, countering it by proposing limited discovery on the three crew chiefs listed in the subpoenas.

• JGR has made several claims that a Spire employee has made them aware that Gabehart is participating in competition and strategy decision-making meetings with Spire, which would overlap his previous duties as competition director at JGR.

• “The 21 subpoenas target personnel that likely possess evidence of Gabehart’s competition-related activities at Spire. These individuals have a direct connection to the breach of contract, tortious interference, and trade secrets misappropriation claims,” one of JGR’s exhibit filings stated.

• JGR argued that the individuals it subpoenaed are the most likely to know if Gabehart breached his JGR employee agreement and misappropriated trade secrets when moving over to Spire.

• In his opposition to JGR’s motion, Gabehart noted that both he and Spire opposed the inclusion of the OCO Designation because of doubt that outside counsel wouldn’t have the industry knowledge to understand certain trade secret materials.

• “Despite obtaining precisely the protections it sought, JGR now demands even more stringent and unworkable restrictions through a proposed Trade Secret Addendum (the “Proposed Addendum”) — which it circulated for the first time on June 18, 2026, four months after initiating this litigation and with less than seven weeks remaining in fact discovery,” Gabehart stated.

• Gabehart contested that discovery materials in JGR’s proposed ‘virtual secured room’ would only be available to outside counsel, who would also be prohibited from discussing the material with their clients.

• Gabehart criticized the motion further by stating that “JGR’s Motion is an effort to gain a tactical advantage in an expedited case. The Proposed Addendum would fundamentally impair Mr. Gabehart’s ability to defend himself by, among other things, barring his own counsel from discussing designated materials with him, requiring document review in a ‘virtual clean room,’ and prohibiting the inclusion of evidence in court filings.”

• Referring to the current, active protective order, Gabehart contended that it already provides adequate protection for confidential and trade secret materials, as well as the fact that JGR created the current framework of the order.

• Gabehart also pointed out that he is under a preliminary injunction that prohibits him from sharing or using JGR’s confidential information, providing further protection for JGR.

• “JGR’s demand for a virtual clean room and restrictions on counsel’s ability to print, copy, or download information goes far beyond what is necessary or proportionate,” the filing further stated. Gabehart also argued that JGR has not provided evidence for the current protective order not being effective enough.

• Gabehart accused JGR of delaying throughout the whole litigation, with this proposal being the latest example.

• “That it chose not to do so — only to demand them now, four months later with fact discovery closing in weeks — suggests that this Motion is driven by litigation strategy rather than genuine need,” Gabehart asserted about JGR’s proposed addendum.

• Gabehart also argued that while he did possess JGR’s trade secrets, he has not misappropriated any of them by sharing with Spire.

• Spire also denied any misappropriation on its part in its filing.

• Regarding the 235 files that JGR proposed to include in its virtual secured room, Gabehart claimed each one has been identified, deleted and have remained in JGR’s possession before the litigation commenced.

• Gabehart also listed multiple examples of why the proposed addendum severely restricts his ability to defend himself.

• First, he argued that the proposed addendum prohibits his counsel from discussing any documents that JGR deems “Highly confidential – Trade Secrets.”

• “How could Mr. Gabehart argue that JGR’s alleged trade secrets are not, in fact, trade secrets if he — as an industry expert — is not allowed even to discuss the materials at issue,” Gabehart questioned.

• Spire also made a similar argument in its filing, stating, “As detailed above, the clean room has already frustrated Spire’s review because many documents are illegible and stripped of metadata. This onerous protocol effectively prevents Spire’s counsel from adequately advising its client, frustrates preparation for upcoming depositions, and limits Spire’s ability to present evidence in its defense in an already compressed schedule.”

• JGR responded to these arguments in a reply supporting its proposal for an amended protective order on July 15, stating, “Spire is a direct competitor of JGR, and Gabehart is employed by Spire in a role that this Court has found has some overlap with competition duties. As such, Spire and Gabehart should not be entitled to see or discuss the substance of JGR’s trade secrets in this case.“

• JGR also contended that its own outside counsel are under the same restrictions and cannot discuss Spire’s trade secrets with JGR personnel.

• Second, Gabehart took aim at JGR’s virtual clean room, arguing that since it would only allow trade secret materials to be reviewed in that space, with limitations on what can be done with the information, it would add unnecessary delay and burden.

• Third, Gabehart listed another condition of the proposed addendum that would prohibit defendants from using quotes or excerpts from trade secret materials in court documents. Gabehart opposed this by stating it would restrict the defendants’ ability to present evidence.

• Lastly, Gabehart’s opposition presented the following: “The Proposed Addendum creates an expert disclosure procedure requiring a written request, a seven-day objection period, and a mandatory meet-and-confer process before any expert may access trade secret materials. This effectively grants JGR veto power over Defendants’ experts.”

• Gabehart accused JGR of using this proposal as a means to access Spire’s confidential information, including race set-ups, scans and data. He also contested that the photos in question that he allegedly misappropriated do not contain actual race set-ups, nor do parts photos contain confidential information.

• Spire echoed the same accusation in its filing, stating, “With no evidence of use (let alone misappropriation) by Spire and no tangible damages, JGR has pivoted: it now seeks Spire’s most confidential trade secrets—laser-generated three-dimensional scans showing the aerodynamic properties of Spire’s cars—so it can argue those scans somehow prove theft of JGR information.”

• In JGR’s support of an amended protective order, it contested that the court has already that the files in the virtual secured room have been deemed trade secrets.

• “This Court has already determined at the preliminary injunction stage that JGR has shown that categories of highly-sensitive documents JGR has identified, including racecar setups, simulation data, engineering data, and testing data, “are trade secrets under both the DTSA and North Carolina’s TSPA because they contain business, financial, or technical information, among other things,” JGR’s reply stated.

• “Worse still, many of the photographs JGR claims as trade secrets are not JGR materials at all. A significant number—photographs dated between 2021 and 2023—are from work Mr. Gabehart performed for Port City Racecars, an unrelated company that sells cars, chassis, and parts to hobby racers,” Gabehart’s filing stated.

• Both Gabehart and Spire said that JGR’s proposal was not made in good faith. JGR refuted this notion in its response, claiming that amending the protective order would protect the trade secrets and competition material of both parties while eliminating irreparable harm.

• JGR contested in its reply that Spire’s accusation against it for wanting to expand the scope of discovery is false. The organization argued that its proposal would not alter the scope of discoverable documents, and that it is seeking documents to discover if Spire used misappropriated trade secrets in its car setups, scans, and post-race analysis.