Chris Gabehart has filed his opposition to Joe Gibbs Racing's motion for expedited discovery, calling it "desperate."
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The filing took place on Wednesday evening. Gabehart's legal team wrote that Joe Gibbs Racing's legal strategy of "accuse first and ask questions later" can not manufacture evidence of him disclosing confidential information.
"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," the filing stated.
Joe Gibbs Racing previously filed a motion for expedited discovery on April 1 while continuing its lawsuit against Gabehart, the former competition director, and Spire Motorsports. The purpose of the motion was to acquire multiple things from the defendants, including deleted text messages between Gabehart and Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson.
MORE: Chris Gabehart's Response to JGR Motion
The motion for expedited discovery also sought a forensic investigation of Dickerson's cell phone(s), tablet(s), and computer(s); the opportunity to subpoena Haas Factory Team executive Joe Custer, Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks, Trackhouse Racing President of Racing Operations Todd Meredith, team owner Rick Ware, and Rick Ware Racing Competition Director Tommy Baldwin; and the opportunity to subpoena cell phone providers.
The legal team continued and said that this motion for expedited discovery is desperate and that the team can not identify a verified instance in which Gabehart transmitted, disclosed or used any confidential information from his former employer.
"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 filing continued.
"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."
Gabehart, who now works as Chief Motorsports Officer at Spire, continued and said through the legal team that he has been efforting to recover the text messages he deleted. He said that the deletion occurred on Nov. 15, 2025, before Joe Gibbs Racing filed its lawsuit alleging that he had stolen confidential information and trade secrets.
The filing also said that the deleting of the text messages occurred three days before he had responded to the draft separation agreement provided by Joe Gibbs Racing. It said that the deletion occurred before Gabehart "anticipated" any litigation from the Cup Series team.
The legal team said in the filing that Gabehart is not opposed to a subpoena to the cell providers and that he has already reached out to his provider to try to recover the deleted text messages. However, they noted that the current request is "not narrowly tailored" as required by case law.
"The deletion occurred on November 15, 2025, well before litigation was ever threatened or anticipated, and Mr. Gabehart has made every effort — and would like nothing more than — to recover the messages," the filing stated. "JGR now attacks Mr. Gabehart and his counsel for supposedly not disclosing this information sooner.
"But what exactly does JGR expect? That Mr. Gabehart's counsel should prematurely reveal client confidences while efforts to retrieve the texts are still ongoing? That they should just abandon their duty of loyalty to their client and bend a knee to Team JGR? No, thank you. JGR's attempt to weaponize Mr. Gabehart's voluntary and timely disclosure reflects the punitive nature of this litigation, not any legitimate evidentiary need."
Gabehart has requested that the Court deny the motion for expedited discovery. However, the end of the filing said that if the Court grants expedited third-party discovery, he requests that the Court permit reciprocal discovery of the cell phones belonging to members of the JGR staff. He mentioned Heather Gibbs, Eric Schaeffer, Dave Alpern, and Toni Rogers.
