Lawsuit Update: Gabehart Calls JGR Competition Team “Dysfunctional,” Ty Gibbs “Not Accountable”
What’s Happening? Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart has filed a new response slamming JGR as…
On Sunday Ricky Stenhouse edged out Joey Logano to win the Daytona 500 under caution. As a holder of a Logano +1300 ticket that finish hurt. A lot. Despite the less than ideal finish on Sunday, 2023 Speedweek was still profitable and we head back across the country to Auto Club in Southern California up 3.55 units thanks to Alex Bowman winning the Pole and Logano winning his Duel on Thursday.
Sunday will be the last the time the Cup Series runs at Auto Club in its current 2 mile tri-oval format. Following this race Auto Club is going to be reconfigured, likely into a short track of some sort, and the Cup Series will not be back to the new track until at least 2025. In any event, in its current format Auto Club has 14 degree banking in the turns and very high tire wear. With its significantly lower banking as compared to Daytona the racing at Auto Club is nothing like what we saw last week. This means nothing we “learned” last week is going to help in projecting Auto Club.
The high-speed high tire wear tracks historically correlated with Auto Club are Homestead and Darlington. At times some handicappers have included Michigan in the list of comparable tracks, given that the tracks are of similar length, but there was minimal correlation between the two tracks in 2022. Stewart Hass Racing associate shop foreman, Brian Murphy, noted that “Auto Club isn’t relatable to Michigan in any way, shape or form.” So I trust that the lack of correlation is meaningful.
Conversely, I am going to continue including Homestead in my model. Correlation with between Auto Club and the single race at Homestead was down to just an r squared of .577 for incident adjusted speed. At .577 the most that I would normally say is that the drivers who are better overall were likely good at both events. Given that Auto Club was just the second points race and third race ever with the Gen 7 car the inconsistency makes some sense though.
Further adding to the confusion, correlation with Las Vegas an intermediate track, in a similar climate to that of Auto Club, and which moved into the higher wear category last year was inconsistent. Correlation between Auto Club and Las Vegas was high for the first Vegas race but was lower than the correlation between Auto Club and Homestead for the second race in Las Vegas. As already noted though, Auto Club and Las Vegas 1 were early in the season. Teams were still figuring out the new car, Toyota in particular had significant issues at intermediates early in 2022. This means I’m going to view the 2022 data with a skeptical eye.
With regards to which tracks to consider, I’m largely falling back on prior years data and looking at tracks with historical correlation to Auto Club. The exception to this is that I’m adding Phoenix to my model. Although Phoenix is just half the length of Auto Club and has less banking, the similar climate of the two tracks seems to result in some correlation and adding Phoenix into my model has helped its accuracy. I’m also making some manual adjustments to the Toyotas since they had early issues but came on strong at the intermediate tracks later in 2022.
I’m starting with the longshot this week because I have a feeling Noah Gragson could be my 2023 version of Tyler Reddick in 2022. Last year it seemed like every week I found a reason to bet on Tyler Reddick. Like 2022 Reddick, 2023 Gragson is an exceptionally talented young driver, who is in mid-tier equipment. Reddick rewarded me with several big wins last year and I feel that Noah is well positioned to do the same in 2023. So, while it’s nice to know I’m generally high on Gragson this year, what you probably want to know is why am I specifically betting on him this week?
Simply put Gragson is strong at high-speed high-wear tracks. Last year in the Xfinity Series Gragson finished second in the first Darlington race, won the second race there. Gragon won the Xfinity race at Homestead and finished second here at Auto Club. In the Auto Club race he led 25 laps and recorded 19 fastest laps.
Gragson doesn’t have the equipment advantage he had last year. JR Motorsports is an elite level Xfinity team, while Legacy Motor Club is a mid-tier Cup Series team. This means Gragson will have to rely more on his pure talent to win, however he has plenty of that and his equipment shouldn’t stop his talent from shining through. His teammate, Erik Jones, nearly won at Auto Club last year and did win the Southern 500 at Darlington. Even 2022 Legacy Motor Club equipment in the hands of a talented driver was clearly up to the challenge of winning Cup Series races. With Jimmie Johnson putting his stamp on the team there is no reason to think that the quality of the equipment won’t improve adding even more value to this bet.
My expected performance metric has Gragson as a solid upper-mid tier driver this week. At +10000 however he is priced well into the back half of the field. For a driver with as much upside as Noah has, that just doesn’t make any sense. I’ve got a tenth of a unit to win 8 units on Gragson at +8000 and I would bet this down to +6500.
DraftKings is a bit of an outlier with regards to pricing Byron for this race. Other books have him at +1200 to +1600, which is a more reasonable price in my mind. The first run of my expected performance metric rated Byron as the third best driver for Sunday’s race. Subsequent runs of the model have seen him get as high as first depending on the specific races and factors used.
Bryon was one of the three best cars here in 2022. Before he was caught up in Tyler Reddick’s blown tire incident, Byron had led 16 laps and was in second place at the end of the second stage. Byron was also third in my incident adjusted speed metric. Bottom line, Byron had a car capable of winning here in 2022.
Byron also showed serious speed at the two most relevant comparable tracks, Darlington and Homestead. At Darlington Byron was third in incident adjusted speed in the first race and fifth in adjusted speed in the second race, leading 75 laps across the two races. At Homestead he was only eighth in incident adjusted speed, however he still managed to lead 32 laps, was second in stage 1, and third in in stage 2. In 2021 Byron won at Homestead, driving through the field from his 31st place starting position to dominate the race leading 102 laps. Byron has consistently shown the ability to get it done at this type of track. He hasn’t finished strong at Auto Club, but his raw ability at this type of track means that +1800 is simply too long. I wouldn’t bet him under this price, but at +1800 I’ve got four tenths of a unit to win 7.2 units on Willy B.
Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart is claiming in court documents that he was “pressured” to be Ty Gibbs’ Crew Chief for a small portion of the 2025 season. While this partnership didn’t last long, the stats suggest that Gabehart could have been a difference maker for the young driver’s 2025 season.
In just six seasons as a NASCAR Cup Series Crew Chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, Chris Gabehart delivered the team 22 NASCAR Cup Series wins, including back-to-back Daytona 500 wins, all with driver Denny Hamlin.
His time as Crew Chief came to an end last season, when Gabehart was seemingly promoted to Competition Director, which most assumed would be his new long-term post at the team.
Surprisingly, this was not the case, as at year’s end, despite 13 wins, 47 top fives, and 69 top tens for the team’s cars, Gabehart left the team for Spire Motorsports under mysterious circumstances.
While things had seemed odd for Gabehart during his short tenure as Competition Director, including a stretch in which he served as a de facto Crew Chief for Ty Gibbs, it seemed that the transition to a new role at JGR had been a winning move for the team.
This drama came to a head last week, when JGR filed a lawsuit against Gabehart, alleging that the former employee used various methods to steal information, such as car setups to give to his new employer.
Though Gabehart has denied any wrongdoing, he leveled a few allegations of his own against JGR in a court filing Wednesday afternoon.
In his filing, Gabehart accused JGR of misleading him in his new role, saying that he found himself answering to JGR leadership and members of the Gibbs family “when making even routine competition decisions.”
“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.
Nonetheless, the NASCAR community’s major takeaway from this filing was Gabehart’s claims about his time serving as Crew Chief for Joe Gibbs’ grandson Ty Gibbs in 2025.
Gabehart says that Joe Gibbs “repeatedly pressured me to take over as crew chief of the No. 54 car.”
The veteran shot caller claims he finally gave in to these pleas during the summer, taking over for Crew Chief Tyler Allen at the June 28, 2025, race at EchoPark Speedway, before leaving this post after the Regular Season Finale at Daytona, tallying nine total races atop the No. 54’s pit box.
“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 this stretch of races, fans could hear Gabehart over Gibbs’ radio during this time, though, at least initially for that first listed date at EchoPark, JGR claimed that he was serving as a race strategist for the No. 54 team, though this could have been the case for this one race.
Nonetheless, despite Gabehart’s claims, the entry lists for that nine-race stretch list Allen as the Crew Chief for the No. 54.
Ultimately, his relationship with the team continued to sour after his time as the No. 54 Crew Chief, with Gabehart alleging that Ty Gibbs was not held to the same standards as other JGR team members, including things such as required meeting attendance.
“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
While Gibbs did not win races or make the playoffs with Gabehart on the pit box, one could wonder how the team fared during this stretch and whether or not Gabehart gave it his all in what he claims was a high-pressure situation.
What’s Happening? Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart has filed a new response slamming JGR as…
Though Gabehart was never officially listed as the Crew Chief of the No. 54 on NASCAR entry lists, given the timeline supplied in this filing, it’s easy to piece together what races Gabehart alleges he and Gibbs worked together.
Gabehart claims he started this role on June 28, 2025, which was race 18 of the 2025 season at EchoPark Speedway, and stayed in this spot for nine races, which would end his tenure with race 26 of the season at Daytona on August 23, 2025.
Entering that first race at EchoPark, through the first 17 races of 2025, the No. 54 team sat 23rd in points, with just two top fives, three top tens, and an average finish of 19.4.
In the alleged nine-race stretch with Gabehart atop the pit box, Gibbs scored two top-fives and four top tens, winning the inaugural NASCAR In-Season Challenge and improving his average finish to 17.7 (14.3 during Gabehart’s nine races with Gibbs).
So, did Gibbs continue his improved form after Gabehart left his post as Crew Chief?
Well, the easy answer is no, as in the final ten races of the season, after Gabehart left, Gibbs would score just one more top five, three more top tens, and tally an average finish of 18.4.
Putting aside all the drama that has come from Gabehart’s time as JGR Competition Director and part-time Crew Chief for Ty Gibbs, it seems that Joe Gibbs was right to push for this pairing.
Nonetheless, with the alleged pressure for Gabehart to add this job to his list of duties at JGR, and his now well-known feelings about the No. 54 team, it seems this pairing was destined to split up from the start.
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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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