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…
Rockingham Speedway is one track that many NASCAR fans want to see back on the schedule. While that did not happen in 2024, fans are clinging to hope for the future. This is everything we know about Rockingham’s NASCAR ambition.
You Need to Know:
Rockingham Speedway wants to get back on the NASCAR schedule. Matthew Sasser of the Richmond County Daily Journal reported in December of 2023. That Rockingham Speedway has asked for additional funding to make the race track ready to host NASCAR again. Rockingham was slated to receive $9 million in Pandemic Recovery Grants.
According to Sasser, Rockingham has asked for the $9 funding on three separate occasions. Richmond County Finance Director, Cary Gartner, said the track requested $3 million in October of 2022 for a repave, just over $1 one year later, and has recently requested the remaining $4.99 million. This is what Chairman Jeff Smart had to say about Rockingham’s ambitions.
The obvious goal… [is] getting NASCAR back. Not only for financial reasons, but for quality of life. Bring it back. Let’s bring racing back to the rock. That’s what we are doing this for
Jeff Smart via Matthew Sasser
Vice Chairman Dr. Rick Watkins also made it very clear that getting NASCAR back to Rockingham is the goal according to Sasser.
I think this board would agree that our number one goal here is to get NASCAR back in Rockingham
Dr. Rick Watkins via Matthew Sasser
According to Sasser, some of this chatter was due to $1.2 million of funding being originally allocated to “Little Rock”, next to Rockingham Speedway. No decision has been made, but, there was concern raised that funding would be better off saved until the big track is ready to bring NASCAR back. Still, it highlights that the local government is hoping to bring back Rockingham Speedway.
Rockingham Speedway has had work done on it very recently. Eric Estepp recently visited the track as a part of the “Moonshine and Motorsports Trail”, and he highlighted that the track had recently been repaved along with installing SAFER barriers.
However, by Eric’s own admission, the track still has a lot of work to be done. There might need to be grandstands added, and there may need to be some work done on the facilities. However, the race track itself is race-ready.
How much money will it take for Rockingham to get everything done? Well, we can compare it to another track that was recently revitalized, North Wilkesboro Speedway.
According to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports North Wilkesboro Speedway’s renovation cost over $20 million. Rockingham got far less than that, so do they have enough money to renovate as much as it needs?
However, the two tracks are not the same. North Wilkesboro was largely abandoned for two and a half decades. Rockingham closed 8 years after North Wilkesboro, and Rockingham has been far more active than North Wilkesboro. Rockingham hosted 2 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races between 2012 and 2013.
Rockingham was active and hosting NASCAR far later than North Wilkesboro ever did. That naturally means Rockingham may not need as much work as North Wilkesboro did. It’s also worth noting that Rockingham will not have to repave anytime soon, which North Wilkesboro did this offseason.
Since the news of the funding asked for by the track in December of 2023, not much else has happened regarding Rockingham Speedway in terms of bringing NASCAR back. However, the track is not just sitting dormant.
In late-March, Rockingham Speedway announced that they were repaving the infield road course. This is primarily used for drifting or for car clubs throughout the year.
The track also has a few events coming up. This includes the Rockingham Speedway Open House on May 18th. Complete with live music, classic stock cars, a raffle, and more. However, no big league stock car races are scheduled.
Overall, it seems that Rockingham coming back has support from the local government. It also may not be as big of a construction or revamping project as North Wilkesboro was. Will Rockingham come back?
An email sent by former Joe Gibbs Racing Competition Director Chris Gabehart claims that resentment towards him from members of the Gibbs family made him feel that the future of JGR was a “no-win situation.”
Last week, Joe Gibbs Racing filed a lawsuit against former Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart, claiming that the former Daytona 500 Champion had schemed to steal vital information from the team in the lead-up to his departure from JGR for Spire Motorsports.
Not even ten days since JGR filed this lawsuit, the two have continued to trade barbs and accusations back and forth through the court system.
In a filing earlier this week, Gabehart accused the team of misleading him in his duties as competition director in 2025, and specifically calling out JGR’s No. 54 team, driven by Joe Gibbs’ grandson Ty, alleging that the team received “differential treatment.”
Friday, an email sent to JGR CFO Tim Carmichael by Gabehart in November 2025 (released as part of this lawsuit) showed just how uncomfortable he had grown working at JGR during his tenure as Competition Director, with the industry veteran stating that Ty Gibbs and his mother, Heather, held “resentment” towards Gabehart.
The now former Competition Director went on to say in this email that, as the two were the future bosses of JGR, “I’m afraid that leaves me in a no-win situation.”
These exchanges, including the claims made by Gibbs in his filing earlier this week, have swept fans into a whirlwind of sorts, with the two sides even meeting in court today for the lawsuit’s first official hearing.
Of course, Gabehart’s claims about the state of operations at JGR pale in comparison to the accusations made by the Gibbs team in their initial lawsuit.
On Tuesday, the team even added Spire Motorsports, Gabehart’s current employer, as a co-defendant, and requested the court force Gabehart to sit out at least the 18 months since his termination before doing any work in NASCAR similar to his role at JGR.
The team is also asking that any information procured by Spire from Gabehart be returned, though the CEO of TWG Motorsports, which owns Spire, Dan Towriss, told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports Friday that “Spire doesn’t want data from Joe Gibbs Racing. It doesn’t have data from Joe Gibbs Racing. No point in time has it had data from Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Alongside Spire, Gabehart adamantly denied any wrongdoing in a post to social media last week, saying, “I feel compelled to speak out today and forcefully and emphatically deny these frivolous and retaliatory claims.”
What’s Happening? Former Joe Gibbs Racing Crew Chief and Competition Director Chris Gabehart has filed a new response slamming JGR as…
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A few years ago, I looked at the racetracks preserved on iRacing that no longer exist in real life. After digging deeper, I expected to find one common reason they all shut down. Instead, each one tells a completely different story — from booming cities and land value spikes to ownership changes, broken promises, and even mysteries that still don’t have clear answers.
Some tracks were pushed out by urban development. Some lost the one person fighting to keep them alive. Others faded due to declining support — or were never meant to last forever in the first place. No two closures are the same, and that’s what makes this deep dive so fascinating.
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NASCAR’s documentary series “Full Speed,” which used to live on Netflix, had its first two seasons look back at entire playoff runs. But now, NASCAR is shifting the series to Amazon Prime Video for its third season, and the scope of the series will also shift to new storylines.
Dropping on March 5, the new season is aimed at zooming in on one event: the 2026 Daytona 500. Instead of a multi-episode run, this time it’s a single-episode documentary that goes all in on one race.
The film will follow big names and storylines from the Daytona 500. It will spotlight the winner, Tyler Reddick, and lean into driver storylines around the weekend. That includes Kyle Busch trying to get his groove back, Brad Keselowski clawing his way back after a broken leg, Connor Zilisch being pushed as the next big thing, and Noah Gragson bringing chaos wherever he goes.
Some fans might question the move away from Netflix, especially after Season 1 pulled in 3.4 million views in the first half of 2024. Then in 2025, the docuseries clocked 900,000 views after its early May release and added another 200,000 between July and December.
But with Prime Video stepping in as one of NASCAR’s broadcast partners, moving the series lines up with a bigger play to keep content under one roof.
Amazon has already dipped into NASCAR storytelling with projects like the docuseries Earnhardt about Dale Earnhardt. Moving Full Speed to Prime follows the same playbook. And for fans who still haven’t seen previous installments, the first two seasons are also heading over to Prime Video.
However, Reddit fans are divided in their opinions about the decision. Some fans actually get why NASCAR changed the format and platform, while a chunk of fans think leaving Netflix is risky because Netflix is where casual viewers stumble into shows. Others push back, pointing out that Prime actually has a massive reach in the U.S. and strong marketing muscle.
While one fan commented, “Makes sense. I highly doubt they were gonna make a new season around a points format they don’t use anymore,” another stated, “Idk the semantics and numbers and everything behind it so I’m probably talking out of my ass….buttttttt….at what point does nascar take the less money for the exposure. You need to be on Netflix, people watch Netflix. People don’t watch Amazon video as much. Who’s gonna watch this that isn’t a nascar fan already. You have a higher chance of getting people lost on Netflix than lost on Amazon Prime Video.”
One fan commented on the news, saying, “100%. I have Amazon Prime and Netflix. AP is a train wreck for videos especially now with their ad program with videos. I steer clear because Netflix is still ad free.” Another fan supported NASCAR’s move, saying, “Prime actually has slightly more subscribers in the USA and in my opinion is better at marketing. It’s a lateral move.”
Another backed NASCAR, stating, “Most NASCAR fans will find some way to be on prime in the month of June. I think they are counting on people watching it then if they have not already seen it. Similar to the Earnhardt documentary that dropped in June last year.”
Another fan comment implied something less glamorous yet very real, pointing out that the Netflix seasons didn’t see a surge in viewership. The first season did okay, but later numbers dipped: “Netflix didn’t seem to work that well for the 2 playoff seasons.”
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