The shop floor at Joe Gibbs Racing in Huntersville, North Carolina. Photo: Dough4872 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Joe Gibbs Racing says its former competition director, Chris Gabehart, last provided services on Nov. 10, 2025. That date appears in JGR’s own court papers, and today is its first anniversary. A year on, the case is a thicket of forensic imaging, contempt motions and arguments about whether a tire pressure counts as a trade secret. Buried inside it is a claim worth a rounding error in NASCAR budget terms, and I think it is the one JGR would least like a jury to think about.
It is Spire Motorsports’ counterclaim over Robert “Cheddar” Smith. The dollar figure is $100,000. The argument is that JGR wants the court to enforce the sport’s written rules while Spire says JGR walked past one of its unwritten ones.
What Spire actually alleges
Spire’s answer and counterclaims, dated June 24, 2026, in Joe Gibbs Racing, LLC v. Gabehart and Spire Motorsports II, LLC (No. 3:26-cv-00133, Western District of North Carolina), plead three counts against JGR. The first is breach of an oral “Implied Trade Contract.” The second is breach of an implied contract, pleaded in the alternative. The third is unjust enrichment.
The story Spire tells is simple. It released Smith from his non-compete so he could join JGR. In return, Spire says, JGR agreed to release a JGR employee of Spire’s choosing or pay Spire $100,000. Spire says JGR refused to release Tyler Allen or Ryan Towles when asked, and never paid. Spire also alleges JGR used Spire’s confidential compensation details to put together Smith’s offer. These are allegations in a pleading, not findings.
The mirror image nobody should miss
JGR’s lawsuit rests on the idea that confidential information is valuable and that someone who takes it, or helps another team use it, should answer for it. Spire’s counterclaim hands that logic back. If Spire’s account holds up, JGR was a team that used a rival’s compensation data to land a hire and then did not honor the price of the release that made the hire possible.
That is the awkward part. Setup sheets are technical, and a jury has to take an expert’s word for what counts as proprietary. A hire, a handshake and a promise that did or didn’t get kept need no translation. Everyone has worked somewhere where a favor was owed.
Spire also pleads that JGR brought this case in bad faith, at paragraph 62 of its counterclaims, though it did not make that a separate count. Spire seeks attorney’s fees, including under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. Even a modest win on the Smith claim would give that argument a talking point.
Why this claim is also shakier than it looks
I am a motorsport writer, not a lawyer, but the pleading itself shows where the weak points are. The deal Spire describes is oral, and its central term is open-ended: a JGR employee of Spire’s choosing. Spire’s lawyers also pleaded two fallback theories, implied contract and unjust enrichment, which is what careful counsel do when they want a second route if the first one does not survive. Enforceability of a garage-floor promise is the live question, and a judge deciding a motion on the papers may see an indefinite term where Spire sees a bargain.
The remedy Spire asks for has an odd shape, too. It wants damages that include the value JGR received, plus “the bargained-for employee or $100,000.” That tells you what Spire was after in 2025. It wanted people, and the cash was the fallback. Allen and Towles are named in the pleading because staff are what the sport really trades in.
What to watch next
The calendar now runs on Judge Susan Rodriguez’s clock. Under the court’s schedule, summary-judgment motions were due Monday, Nov. 9, responses come Nov. 23 and replies Dec. 1. A hearing is slated for Dec. 15, and a jury trial for Feb. 1, 2027. JGR originally asked for a Nov. 16, 2026 trial, a date Spire fought in April, so the schedule that emerged puts trial roughly eleven weeks later than JGR wanted.
The Smith claim also sits alongside the louder fights. Backfire has covered the contempt motion that asks whether a tire pressure is a trade secret and Spire’s defense over Cup meetings. Our earlier look at the handshake trade behind the lawsuit has the background on how the arrangement is said to have been struck.
My read: if the Smith claim dies on summary judgment, JGR loses a distraction and Spire loses its simplest story. If it survives, a jury in a trade secrets case may get to hear about the unwritten rules JGR is accused of breaking and the unwritten rules Spire says JGR broke first. Whether the sport’s old handshake culture helps or hurts either side will be decided by people who may never have heard of a car chief.
Sourcing note: This analysis draws on Spire’s June 24, 2026 counterclaims, JGR’s July 15 memorandum on Gabehart’s counterclaims (Dkt. 116) and the court’s published schedule. We have not reviewed any summary-judgment briefing filed on or after Nov. 9.
Lead image: The shop floor at Joe Gibbs Racing in Huntersville, North Carolina. Photo: Dough4872 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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