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…
As NASCAR’s offseason has rolled on, its most popular driver has been notably absent from many mainstream conversations. He’s not washed up, he’s a threat to win races in 2024, but he’s not the one driving conversations among fans. What is it that has caused Elliott’s brief fall from mainstream NASCAR relevance, and will he return to that prominence in 2024?
Elliott’s story begins with talking about his 2023 Cup Series season. It was a difficult one featuring him breaking his leg while skiing the week after the second race of the season. Elliott being off the track for those weeks caused many to attribute NASCAR’s early season TV ratings slump to his absence.
The “Chase Elliott Effect,” as it was called, saw NASCAR Cup Series races take a major drop in TV viewership compared to 2022. It was so bad that NASCAR heavily promoted Elliott’s return when he came back at Martinsville. They even went so far as to make an entire commercial about it that fans can watch here.
Eventually, though, he was back on the track, and NASCAR’s TV ratings stabilized somewhat after he returned. Martinsville, his first race back, saw a slight uptick in TV viewers. However, it did not solve NASCAR’s problem, as 24 of 38 races still saw a decrease in TV viewership.
Then came possibly the biggest blow to his reputation. Elliott was suspended for one race after intentionally wrecking Denny Hamlin during the Coca-Cola 600.
Before this, he was NASCAR’s Golden Boy who was seen as the undisputed face of the sport amongst the fanbase. This incident was a major dent in that reputation. This dent was by no means a death sentence to his career, but, Elliott’s promotional reputation was tainted.
On the track, he was performing fine overall, but, he was not winning races. He never led more than 18 laps in a race during the Regular Season, and that overall performance caused him to miss the Playoffs.
This all came to a head at Watkins Glen when he ran out of fuel after a critical miscalculation by crew chief Alan Gustafson. While this was not the sole reason he missed the Playoffs, it was the perfect representation of his frustrating season.
Now out of the Drivers Playoffs, Elliott was not relevant in the NASCAR world throughout the Playoffs. He had some good races including leading 47 laps at Kansas and 83 laps at Martinsville, but since he was not in the Playoffs, he wasn’t as heavily promoted as he had been early in the season.
However, yet another incident happened during the Playoffs at Kansas. Elliott door slammed teammate and Playoff contender Kyle Larson on pit road. Afterward, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio’s Danielle Trotta made scathing comments about Elliott, calling out his poor decision-making throughout the season. This set off another firestorm of bad publicity surrounding Elliott’s reputation and etiquette as a teammate.
In the offseason, Elliott has remained relatively quiet. This was not necessarily unexpected. He is not quite as active on social media as other drivers, and he does not make many headlines with interview comments.
He did surface to update his fans on the shoulder surgery he got in November. But this led to even more questions about how healthy he really was in 2023 given that he was dealing with a broken leg and a shoulder injury.
He won the Most Popular Driver Award for the 6th season in a row, so he was at the NASCAR Awards. Aside from this, he’s been radio silent.
Then came the Netflix docuseries, where Elliott (again, the sport’s most popular driver) was never even mentioned. It was as if he was invisible throughout the 2023 Playoffs. This was a bit of a surprise to some given how popular Elliott is amongst the fanbase.
As a result of all of this, the mainstream conversation surrounding NASCAR is not about Elliott. It’s about the stars of the Netflix docuseries like Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, and Ross Chastain. Hamlin in particular has garnered much conversation for the great access he gave the Netflix crews.
With all of this in mind, will Elliott find a way back into NASCAR’s mainstream once again?
The answer to that question is most likely a yes. At the end of the day, he is still the sport’s most popular driver, so he will become a part of the conversation by default. It’s not like he lost that fanbase overnight, despite him likely not gaining many new fans.
It’s also important to note that in 2023, Elliott performed better than people think he did. He finished 2023 with 15 top-10 finishes, which was more than Ross Chastain (14), Bubba Wallace (10), and Kevin Harvick (14). It was also just one fewer than Tyler Reddick (16) and Brad Keselowski (16).
Elliott’s average finish in 2023 was 13.1. If he kept that up and competed in all 36 races, that would have ranked 6th in the Cup Series. His average finish was better than the top-2 in the final standings, Ryan Blaney (14.1) and Kyle Larson (14.6). Elliott did all of this while missing 7 races.
Keep in mind that Elliott also had three consecutive Championship 4 appearances between 2020 and 2022.
Will he be the number one driver at Hendrick Motorsports? That is to be determined, and he has tough competition for that spot. William Byron had a career year in 2023, and Kyle Larson had made two of the last three Championship 4’s.
Chase Elliott is ready to put 2023 behind him. He has the talent and equipment to make 2024 a great season, but he has stiff competition within his team to contend with.
iRacing has finally given NASCAR fans a first look at the in-game model of the NASCAR Ram Truck slated to join the racing sim’s lineup in the near future.
Though iRacing says the Ram model is still pending approvals, this announcement marks a major milestone for Ram in its 2026 return to NASCAR, as this is the first appearance the brand will make in motorsports gaming in well over a decade.
Of course, the next major question facing Ram will be its inclusion in iRacing’s next edition of their console-based NASCAR game series, which most expect to be titled NASCAR 26.
iRacing was open about its use of models from its self-titled subscription-based online racing service for NASCAR 25. But, as of press time, they have yet to announce any details about the next game, although it’s fair for players to assume the Ram model used for iRacing will likely be used in the next NASCAR console game.
The NASCAR news for iRacing Season 2 didn’t stop at Ram, as iRacing also confirmed that the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, a new addition to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series schedule in 2026, will join its track list during Season 2.
iRacing also confirmed tweaks to the in-game physics of both the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, focused on updating the series’ in-game drafting model.
But the biggest news of all (beyond Ram, of course) is that iRacing plans to have NASCAR’s San Diego Street Circuit at Naval Base Coronado ready for play before the end of the 2026 season, with the Development Update claiming they are targeting a release date sometime in June.
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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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