Location: Circuit of the Americas
Date: Sunday, Mar. 26th
Time: 3:30 PM ET
Catch the race on: FOX, PRN, SiriusXM
The legal fight between Joe Gibbs Racing and former competition director Chris Gabehart just escalated, and now it’s not just about data. In his official response, Gabehart pushed back hard against the restraining order request… and made serious claims about dysfunction surrounding the No. 54 team and its driver, Ty Gibbs.
In his filing, Gabehart denies sharing any trade secrets and says forensic reviews back that up. But the bombshell allegations focus on internal structure, claiming the 54 car was managed directly by ownership and not held to the same standards as other teams. Those comments pull back the curtain on tensions many fans only speculated about, especially after last season’s on-track friction involving teammates like Denny Hamlin. If this heads toward trial, more details could surface. If it settles, we may never get the full picture. Either way, the public back-and-forth has already shifted perception, and how this plays out could impact not just one team, but how authority, accountability, and information are handled across the garage.
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Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart has filed a new response slamming JGR as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought against the former Daytona 500 Champion by his former employer.
What’s Happening? Joe Gibbs Racing has filed a lawsuit against former competition director Chris Gabehart, alleging he took confidential team information…
Gabehart departed Joe Gibbs Racing this past offseason following eight seasons as a Crew Chief and one as the team’s Competition Director, while serving as an unofficial Crew Chief for Ty Gibbs’ No. 54 team.
This move surprised fans, as, under his tenure in 2026, the team scored 13 wins, 47 top fives, 69 top tens, and placed three cars in the Playoffs, with two in the Championship Four.
Nonetheless, with his future still in the air, JGR sued Gabehart last week, claiming he “embarked on a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor in NASCAR.”
While the industry veteran responded to the allegations last week in a post to social media, he expanded his side of the story in a scathing response filed Wednesday afternoon.
In his response, Gabehart claims that in 2025, he became discontented with his role at JGR “and other aspects of how JGR’s race teams were being run.”
Expanding on this opinion, Gabehart stated first that his duties at JGR as Competition Director were “materially inconsistent with my reasonable expectations when I accepted the position,” going on to say that the structure at JGR was “dysfunctional.”
“I was promised a COO-type role overseeing all competitive operations with autonomy to lead. Instead, I found myself constantly intertwined with Coach Gibbs, senior JGR executives, and family members when making even routine competition decisions—a dysfunctional organizational structure that I could not continue in.” — Chris Gabehart
Ironically, since his departure, Joe Gibbs confirmed during an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on February 12, that the team now uses a committee approach for the Competition Director duties.
What’s Happening? Team Owner Joe Gibbs broke down the new structure of JGR in the aftermath of the departure of former…
Gabehart then turned his barrel at the No. 54 team, a car driven by Gibbs’ grandson Ty Gibbs, and a team that Gabehart served as the substitute Crew Chief of during the 2025 season, before returning the reins to the team’s official shot caller, Tyler Allen.
The long-time Crew Chief said that in his opinion, the No. 54 team is not held to the same standards as other teams in the organization, saying, “It was my view that the No. 54 car should be managed and held accountable in the same manner as the organization’s other cars.”
He even alleged that Joe Gibbs directly oversaw his grandson’s team and “pressured” Gabehart to take over as Crew Chief early on during his time as JGR’s Competition Director.
“Beginning early in the 2025 season, Coach Gibbs repeatedly pressured me to take over as crew chief of the No. 54 car. I consistently declined, explaining that as Competition Director, I did not believe this was the right move, that it would undermine the long-term development of the team, and that I did not want to be crew chief of the No. 54 or any other car.” — Chris Gabehart
Gabehart even explained how he took over for Tyler Allen before returning duties to the team’s original Crew Chief:
“Despite my objections, Coach Gibbs and ownership continued pressing, and I eventually conceded to the pressure by first helping the No. 54 team more behind the scenes and then, beginning on June 28, 2025, by publicly serving as the crew chief and calling the races on Sundays for nine consecutive races before returning those duties to the original crew chief, Tyler Allen, against the strong desires of ownership, when I made it clear that I did not want to serve as a crew chief for the long term.” — Chris Gabehart
During Gabehart’s tenure with the No. 54 team, which per his account began with the summer race at EchoPark Speedway and concluded after nine races with the Playoff cutoff race at Daytona, the team scored two top fives, four top tens, and tallied an average finish of 14.3. The team also won the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge Tournament during this stretch of races.
Furthermore, at the start of that stretch, JGR initially claimed that Gabehart was not the Crew Chief and was a race strategist for the No. 54 team, though this may have been for one race.
In the 17 races prior to Gabehart’s time as the No. 54’s Crew Chief, with Allen on the box, the team had just two top fives, three top tens, and a 19.4 average finish.
But despite this improvement, the team failed to make the Playoffs, with Gabehart focused on his role as Competition Director. However, he notes in his filing that it is his opinion that the “differential treatment” of Gibbs’ team undermined my position as Competition Director.”
He even touted that Gibbs had a different meeting attendance standard than other JGR team members.
“I also identified specific examples of the No. 54 team’s differential treatment that undermined my position as Competition Director. For example, key personnel decisions were made without my counsel or input despite my role as Competition Director; and critically the No. 54 driver was not held to the same meeting attendance standards as others on the team.” — Chris Gabehart
Ultimately, the real bitterness in this filing is found later on, when Gabehart alleges the lawsuit isn’t about stolen information, rather, as he puts it, “it is about punishing a former employee for daring to leave.”
What’s Happening? Joe Gibbs Racing alleged that former competition director Chris Gabehart took a wide range of confidential team information regarding…
Gabehart also addressed the origin of the lawsuit in his filing, backing up a claim in his social media post last week that Spire Motorsports, now a co-defendant in this lawsuit, is willing to let a forensic examiner look through their information to confirm Gabehart did not take “sensitive information” from the team.
JGR alleges that he used several methods to take setup information from JGR, including an allegation that he synchronized his personal Google Drive account with a JGR-issued laptop to supply it to a rival team, known to be Spire Motorsports.
In Wednesday’s filing, Gabehart provided a letter from attorneys at the law firm Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson claiming that Spire, which now employs him as their Chief Motorsports Officer, is willing to allow a neutral forensic examiner to look through Spire materials to “confirm that no JGR information was transmitted to or used by Spire.”
Tuesday night, JGR filed a new document of its own, which requested the court grant a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent Gabehart from working at Spire in a similar role to his job at JGR for the next 18 months and require Spire to return any information to JGR.
Nonetheless, this filing, alongside one from JGR Tuesday night, shows there are no signs of this lawsuit slowing down, with Gabehart’s accusations making this one of the most bitter breakups in recent NASCAR history.
What’s Happening? Joe Gibbs Racing has added to its lawsuit filed against former Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart, filing…
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