Overall, Chris Gabehart, through his legal counsel, is objecting to the latest expedited discovery motions made to the court from former employer Joe Gibbs Racing but also says he is making efforts to recover the deleted texts with Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson at the center of the latest legal wrangling.
Big picture, the Gabehart legal team wants these latest series of motions denied because the court has already granted a limited in scope expedited discovery, but also because the now current Spire Chief Racing Officer believes JGR doesn’t have evidence for what it is seeking.
Everything from the legal filing is italicized below.
“JGR’s Motion should be denied. The Motion seeks to relitigate issues the Court has already addressed, expand expedited discovery well beyond the narrow scope the Court previously authorized, and needlessly pull third parties into the litigation without even trying to articulate a factual basis. JGR’s litigation strategy—file motion after motion, accuse first and ask questions later—cannot manufacture evidence of disclosure of confidential JGR information where none exists.
“JGR is clearly desperate. It has yet to identify a single verified instance in which Mr. Gabehart transmitted, disclosed, or used any JGR Confidential Information. Not for lack of trying: a pre-litigation examination of Mr. Gabehart’s JGR-issued laptop, cell phone, and Google accounts—conducted by JGR’s own examiner pursuant to JGR’s own protocol—and a first round of Court-ordered expedited discovery both came up empty.
“The only documents JGR has been able to point to are personal to Mr. Gabehart and cannot seriously be said to qualify as ‘Confidential Information’ or trade secrets—a high-level business plan and a basic scorecard form used to compile widely-disseminated race information and take notes. JGR’s latest Motion is yet another attempt to paper over this fundamental shortfall with volume rather than substance.”
Joe Gibbs Racing is suing Gabehart for over $8 million dollars over a ‘brazen scheme’ to steal trade secrets for the benefit of Spire. Gibbs later expanded its lawsuit to include Spire. Gabehart has maintained that no proprietary data has been shared with Spire and has accused JGR of breaching its contract with him over severance responsibilities.
In response, Gibbs says it ceased paying Gabehart upon the discovery that its former competition director and longtime crew chief had stored proprietary data on his personal devices, and continued to access them, at the same time he was negotiating his employment with Spire.
The court, presided by Judge Susan C. Rodriguez granted limited expedited discovery, at which point Gabehart disclosed texts between himself and Dickerson had been deleted. Dickerson himself deleted the same texts through an auto-delete function.
Gabehart working to recover deleted texts
Gabehart does not object to the recovery of those text messages, and is making efforts to procure them from his cellular provider, but does not agree to the scope in which JGR has asked the court to grant such discovery.
He says he has asked his carrier for those communications but has yet to receive a response.
“He has nothing to hide and would like nothing more than for JGR and the Court to see these texts.”
Again, Gabehart does object to the scope. Joe Gibbs Racing has requested all communication between Gabehart and Dickerson through March 13, 2026.
“The deletion in question occurred on November 15, 2025. Mr. Gabehart’s text messages have now been preserved multiple times—once in January 2026 by JGR’s forensic examiner and once in March 2026 by Mr. Gabehart’s forensic expert. JGR’s Request 3 date range is much too broad without justification.
“Given the open-ended nature of the request, Mr. Gabehart should issue the subpoena and any documents produced should be directed to Mr. Gabehart’s counsel first for privilege review and a relevance determination before production to any other party. Mr. Gabehart has legitimate concerns about the protection of attorney-client privileged communications and joint defense materials. JGR’s requested timeframe extends through March 13, 2026—a period during which Mr. Gabehart was actively represented by counsel in this litigation and engaged in joint defense communications with co-defendants. Permitting JGR unfettered access to these records without appropriate privilege review would be fundamentally unfair and contrary to established discovery practice.”
Re: Dickerson, Dan Towriss subpoenas
Joe Gibbs Racing is also seeking continued expedited discovery from communication devices from Dickerson.
The Gabehart legal team rejects that because it argues that JGR has previously argued against Gabehart seeking subpoenas from JGR executives over how it viewed their contract status at the end of last season.
“When Mr. Gabehart requested reciprocal discovery—including forensic examination of devices belonging to JGR personnel—JGR opposed that request. JGR argued that third-party personal devices should be excluded from expedited discovery. Now that JGR wants to examine a third party’s devices, it readily abandons that position.
“The Court should not permit JGR to selectively invoke litigation positions when they are advantageous and discard them when they are not.”
Thus, Gabehart has asked the judge, if she so-chooses to allow such third-party subpoenas, than they want the same in return over communications about when JGR believed Gabehart was indeed no longer employed by them.
“Specifically, if the Court permits forensic examination of Mr. Dickerson’s devices or subpoenas to third parties, Mr. Gabehart requests the reciprocal discovery of the cell phones of Heather Gibbs, Eric Schaeffer, Dave Alpern, and Toni Rogers, consistent with prior requests. These individuals played central roles in JGR’s decision to pursue this litigation and in the so-called ‘for cause’ termination that JGR claims triggered the 18-month non-compete. Their communications are directly relevant to Mr. Gabehart’s defenses and counterclaims.”
Trackhouse, Haas and Ware subpoenas
The Joe Gibbs Racing legal team has also repeatedly asked the court to subpoena text messages from Joe Custer of Haas Factory Team, Justin Marks and Todd Meredith of Trackhouse Racing and Rick Ware and Tommy Baldwin from Rick Ware Racing for ‘communications with Spire or Spire’s agents concerning Spire’s possession of JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets.’
The court did not grant this motion once because Judge Rodriguez felt like JGR did not have any evidence. It still has not produced evidence in court or filings that suggests these two other Chevrolet teams have had any such communications. The judge said she was not going to allow JGR to go on a fishing expedition.
Gabehart’s legal team says that hasn’t changed and JGR just has speculation about what Dickerson ‘may have’ communicated.
“JGR’s request is part of a continued harassment campaign designed to drag Mr. Gabehart, Mr. Dickerson, and anyone associated with Spire through the mud with no evidentiary basis. The racing community is small and tight-knit. JGR knows that serving subpoenas (with no evidentiary basis) on leaders of competing teams will deliver a message throughout the industry. The Court should not become a surrogate for JGR’s turf war.”
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