Until November 10, 2025, Defendant served as one of JGR’s most senior leaders with respect to all competitive aspects of the business. After his demands for additional authority were rebuffed 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 in NASCAR—Spire Motorsports. In this action, JGR seeks to recover its extensive damages and enjoin Defendant from violating his contractual obligations and wrongfully using JGR’s confidential information and trade secrets.
The above text is from the introduction of a lawsuit filed by Joe Gibbs Racing against now-former competition director Chris Gabehart on Thursday in the Western District of North Carolina.
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Upon information and belief, Defendant used JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets he stole from JGR concerning the compensation JGR paid its employees in soliciting and recruiting JGR employees to depart the Company’s employ and begin working for Spire.
The lawsuit is filed under the ‘Defend Trade Secrets Act’ creates a private right of action for “[a]n owner of a trade secret that is misappropriated . . . if the trade secret is related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, interstate or foreign commerce.”
The lawsuit states that Gabehart has created damages in excess of $8,000,000 but it is for the jury to decide compensation if it goes to court.
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Over the course of 30 pages, the lawsuit details a timeline in which Gabehart received an opportunity from Spire Motorsports to become Chief Motorsports Officer while also participating in an alleged scheme to use proprietary information from JGR in that role.
That includes what JGR stated was Gabehart syncing his personal Google Drive with his team laptop. This laptop had a folder named ‘Spire,’ photos of proprietary team information like salaries, set-ups, performance analyses for drivers, crew chief and pit crews.
The lawsuit claims that Gaebhart accessed these files even while negotiating a departure settlement and on a day he met with Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson. It was at this point on December 15, that JGR states that it ceased negotiation over a separation package and issued a cease and desist.
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The team also pursued a forensic review of Gabehart’s electronics that eventually formed the basis for this lawsuit.
Gabehart made $1,000,000 base salary last season in his first year since taking the competition director role following over a decade with the team as an engineer and then crew chief. There was also performance bonus caked into that agreement.
This is according to his contract, which was also included as an exhibit to the lawsuit, as JGR states that Gabehart was in violation of their employment agreement. That violation includes Section 5, detailed in italics below.
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During the Term and for so long as such Confidential Information is not generally known (other than due to Employee’s breach), Employee shall not disclose Confidential Information to any third party or use any Confidential Information for any purpose other than as necessary to perform pursuant to this Agreement unless and until such Confidential Information becomes generally known, except as a result of unauthorized disclosure.
With that out of the way, Joe Gibbs Racing stated Gabehart expressed a dissatisfaction with his role ‘over the course of the 2025 season’ and effectively wanted a promotion.
He wanted complete responsibility and control over all departments supporting JGR’s competition efforts instead of working with other departments supporting JGR’s competition efforts as a peer. … Eventually, Defendant’s dissatisfaction reached a boiling point, and he requested a meeting with JGR owner, Joe Gibbs to voice his demands. Coach Gibbs agreed to meet Defendant on November 6, 2025. During that meeting, Defendant requested additional job authority that would give Defendant carte blanche authority over all racing decisions.
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Coach Gibbs declined to offer those responsibilities to Gabehart on November 6 and asked if he wanted to stay as competition director or leave. The lawsuit states that Gabehart told Gibbs he ‘preferred’ to leave JGR. This is when JGR began to prepare the separation package and terms for his employment elsewhere.
That first proposal came on November 10, and again, all italicized text is from the legal filing.
Under those terms, Defendant would have been permitted to work for another NASCAR team, provided that he agreed not to solicit key employees and contractors and that he cooperated in returning JGR equipment and information.
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During the course of negotiations, Defendant’s counsel made repeated edits to the draft agreement, which appeared calculated to allow him to immediately solicit JGR employees to leave JGR.
This is also when JGR became aware that Gabehart had been personally meeting with Dickerson. This made JGR ‘suspicious.’ Gabehart agreed on December 17 to return any team information but objected to a forensic review.
Defendant represented that the ‘Spire’ folder on his Google Drive ‘was used to store his own notes and personal records.’ This was untrue. Defendant also represented that he ‘has not retained documents concerning JGR’s sensitive financial data.’ This was also untrue, as the photos taken by Defendant on November 7, 2025, contained a significant amount of sensitive financial information.
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Gabehart and Gibbs continued to negotiate over this matter. Gabehart said, according to the JGR legal filing, that Spire’s offer ‘was not to provide similar services to those he provided to JGR.’ The two parties eventually agreed to a forensic protocol in which a third-party expert would ‘identify JGR information on those devices; and (c) securely delete confirmed JGR information.’
Gabehart provided his devices to that examiner of January 12 and the examiner provided the files to JGR’s counsel to January 27. The files were deleted from Gabehart’s devices on February 4.
On February 11, JGR learned for the first time that Gabehart’s role at Spire would be responsible for all of its racing strategy and operations.
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This was new information to JGR, as Defendant previously represented to JGR on December 17, 2025, that the job offer he received from Spire was for a role in which he would not provide Spire with services similar to the services he provided JGR.
JGR then concluded that Gabehart refused to the initial forensic examination because ‘that would demonstrate Defendant had 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 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 states the photos were saved to Gabehart’s personal phone and personal Google Photos account. What did those photos include?
Comprehensive post-race audit and analyses 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 compensation plans for prior years; An employee compensation calculator used to project and plan pay for key JGR positions; Driver pay for the 2025 and 2026 NASCAR seasons; Revenues from sponsors, partners, and other business arrangements for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 NASCAR seasons; JGR’s pit crew analytics for the 2024 NASCAR season; and Detailed analytics of racecar tires used to assess impact on race results.
There were also all manner of other proprietary team information synched to Gaebart’s personal accounts and that he once opened those documents on a day in which he met with Dickerson.
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Defendant accessed and interacted with the Spire Folder on November 12, 13, 15, 23, 25, 26, 27, and December 2 of 2025—the same day he met with Jeff Dickerson.
The case has been assigned to Judge Matthew E. Orso, who also currently is overseeing the Kyle Busch v Pacific life lawsuit. The next legal step would call for Gabehart to file a response with the court.
The Joe Gibbs Racing complaint can be read in its entirety below.
JGR lawsuit against Chris Gabehart by nickdegroot89
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