Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has filed a motion with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina to have Chris Gabehart and Spire Motorsports held in civil contempt. This action is based on the alleged violation of a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction that was imposed on them in March.
What JGR is asking for is for the defendants to appear before the court to explain why they should not be held in contempt. This motion is part of a complicated legal battle and counterclaim between the three parties, which began when Gabehart left JGR at the end of last season, where he was accused of violating his contract and taking confidential information to Spire.
Since the initiation of the litigation, the court has issued an order prohibiting Gabehart from providing services to Spire that are similar to his role as competition director at Gibbs during the 2025 season. This includes preparing and executing car and race strategies, as well as advising on technical and operational aspects to improve performance.
According to JGR, Gabehart has acted contrary to this order on several occasions during the season, with Spire facilitating this behavior by naming him as the ‘Chief Motorsports Officer’ with a broad role of ‘everything competition’ that JGR considers misleading.
In its motion, JGR alleges that Spire has not imposed significant restrictions on Gabehart until months after the litigation began. JGR urges the court to order Gabehart and Spire to appear, and to consider their conduct a challenge to the authority of the court.
To support its position, JGR has submitted numerous documents including emails, testimonies, and text messages showing that Gabehart has acted as a competition director after the issuance of the court order.
Among other evidence, a conversation was documented on March 21, 2026, during which Gabehart discussed technical details about Spire’s vehicles with Spire’s competition director, Matt McCall. A week later, driver Carson Hocevar communicated to Gabehart via text message technical difficulties with his car.
Gabehart has also been accused of attending several competition meetings and offering technical assistance after the court orders. JGR has stated that Gabehart participated in at least five and possibly twelve competition meetings, and that Spire has only submitted a video and three pages of notes from these meetings.
As part of this litigation, JGR is attempting to recover text messages that Gabehart deleted, including an exchange with Jeff Dickerson, co-owner of Spire, that occurred just two days after Gabehart received a job offer from Spire. JGR argues that this deletion of messages may have been done with the intention of hindering their investigation.
The case continues to generate expectations, and the outcome of this legal conflict between JGR, Spire, and Gabehart could have significant consequences for the sport and for the parties involved.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_8c43661f6349b41e677874d41519e425f514aec3