The legal battle between Joe Gibbs Racing and Chris Gabehart has escalated. After the initial filing, JGR has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against their former competition director, Chris Gabehart.

On February 19, 2026, Joe Gibbs Racing claimed that Gabehart was "embarking on a brazen scheme to steal JGR’s most sensitive information and use it for the benefit of a direct competitor in NASCAR," which is Spire Motorsports.

Fox's Bob Pockrass revealed that JGR is not backing down. “Joe Gibbs Racing has filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, and preliminary injunction requiring Chris Gabehart to cease and desist working or performing any services for Spire similar to those he provided to JGR for the 18 months following February 9, 2026,” wrote Pockrass.

The updated complaint claims Gabehart breached his contract and misappropriated trade secrets after his power demands were rejected by Joe Gibbs, claiming that he took the official sensitive data from the JGR laptop for the benefit of Spire Motorsports. 

Spire Motorsports was not included in the lawsuit when it was initially filed. However, they also requested to add Spire Motorsports to the lawsuit, believing the team accepted illegally obtained data.

Meanwhile, Chris Gabehart hasn’t filed any legal response yet and has 14 days from the time of the lawsuit being filed to respond.

Chris Gabehart refused to accept the allegations

“I look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate to the Court that I have not shared JGR’s confidential information with anyone. In fact, I have already demonstrated that to JGR." 

Gabehart said after the lawsuit was initially filed. Chris Gabehart rejected all the claims and has his own side of the story, stating he already allowed JGR to investigate his laptop and Spire Motorsports, but JGR denied. 

"A third-party forensic expert retained by JGR recently examined my laptop, cell phone, and personal Google Drive and found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in JGR's lawsuit.

We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire's systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.”

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Kaamna Dwivedi

Edited by

Sagnik Bagchi