In a Wednesday night legal filing, Spire Motorsports and co-owner Jeff Dickerson responded to Joe Gibbs Racing’s motion for expedited fact discovery with retorts that the Toyota flagship organization’s posture has devolved into a series of hypotheticals.
“In a case that is supposed to be about JGR’s ‘crown jewels’ and ‘secret sauce,’ JGR’s primary focus in the preliminary stages of this litigation has quickly collapsed into a run-of-the-mill discovery dispute about text messages for a one-month period between a party and a non-party.
“Finding nothing of value in response to initial expedited discovery, JGR’s talk of ‘past car setups,’ car simulations, and ‘two one-hundredths of an inch [makes the difference]’ has given way to newfound fantasies about what might have been. But a burning desire for evidence that does not exist does not warrant expedited discovery.”
Everything taken directly from the filing is italicized.
As part of its $8 million lawsuit against its former competition director and longtime crew chief, Joe Gibbs Racing is alleging that Gabehart participated in a ‘brazen scheme’ to take trade secrets from JGR to Spire in violation of a non-compete agreement between them. In the week after suing Gabehart, JGR also amended its legal complaint to include Spire.
Since then, Joe Gibbs Racing has pursued expedited discovery on Gabehart and Spire, which meant asking Judge Susan C. Rodriguez for the right to seek communications and documents pertinent to the lawsuit to address potentially time-sensitive damages.
In this case, JGR believes that Spire has obtained trade secrets from Gabehart and is using that information against them right now during the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season. Judge Rodriguez granted a ‘narrow in scope’ expedited discovery order, and while JGR did find some questionable work documents from Gabehart, did not find anything that definitely suggested the sharing of proprietary data.
It did force Gabehart to disclose that he had deleted text messages with Dickerson from before November 15 and that Dickerson’s same text messages with Gaebhart were lost as part of a 30-day auto delete feature that was only turned off once the suit was filed in March.
So now Joe Gibbs Racing has asked Judge Rodriguez for a second round of expedited discovery, which Gabehart largely rejected earlier on Wedneday and Spire echoed with its own filing.
“JGR has already sought expedited discovery once, and now, dissatisfied with the results, presses an even broader motion—all while the parties are negotiating an expedited scheduling order that will govern this entire case. JGR specifically seeks expansive, expedited, one-sided discovery from Spire, Dickerson, and even Spire’s competitors … JGR fails to establish that ‘good cause’ exists to depart from the normal merits-based discovery timeline.
“JGR claims expedited discovery is necessary to identify the contents and assess the recoverability of the missing texts and prevent future spoliation, but its sweeping requests— untethered to those objectives and despite Spire’s robust preservation efforts, which JGR has never challenged—are not tailored to those goals.
“JGR thus fails to show any irreparable harm from waiting until merits discovery begins. Further, piecemeal, one-sided discovery would only add unnecessary cost and inefficiency for both sides, especially where Spire’s preservation efforts eliminate any risk of evidentiary loss. The Court should deny JGR’s motion.”
Merits-based discovery is the standard fact discovery procedure that has yet to take place, with JGR, Spire and Gabehart each asking Judge Rodriguez for an expedited process to reach a trial as soon as possible this year in the absence of a settlement.
Earlier in the day, Gabehart’s filing offered a willingness to subpoena his own cellular provider for his missing text messages, because ‘I have nothing to hide’ but that he had not yet received a response. Spire submitted a declaration from a forensics analyst under retainer, Kevin Clarke, who testified that the text messages were not recoverable from Dickerson’s devices.
These messages, both individuals say, were deleted prior to the lawsuit being filed and before either Dickerson or Gabehart suggested they had any reason to believe they would be subject to litigation.
JGR disputes that, of course, arguing in court and in legal filings that its legal department called Dickerson in December warning Spire to not interfere with the contractual non-compete period between it and Gabehart.
For his part, Gabehart said JGR violated its non-compete period by not paying him. JGR said it stopped paying him under the belief that Gabehart was conspiring with Spire. It also maintains its contract with Gabehart allowed for a 90-day cure or remedy period.
That’s to be argued further in court.
Like Gabehart, Spire’s legal response says it has agreed to subpoena Dickerson’s wireless provider for call records and text message logs but says Joe Gibbs Racing ‘inexplicably refused’ unless Spire also consents to a series of third-party subpoenas on representatives from Trackhouse Racing, Haas Factory Team and Rick Ware Racing.
Also like Gabehart earlier in the day, Spire’s legal position is that if the court mandates a third-party subpoena on third-parties like the above team representatives and Dickerson, Judge Rodriguez should also allow reciprocal third-party subpoenas and discovery against every JGR employee that has filed declarations over the past month.
“If the Court authorizes expedited third-party discovery of Dickerson’s personal devices, the Court should authorize reciprocal third-party discovery of communications contained on personal devices belonging to JGR’s owners and employees, including Joe Gibbs, Heather Gibbs, Tim Carmichael, Dave Alpern, Toni Rogers, Eric Schaffer, Denny Hamlin, Todd Berrier, and Walter Brown.
“To do otherwise would permit JGR to avoid the very expedited discovery it now seeks to impose on Dickerson. Indeed, three weeks ago, it was JGR who argued forcefully that expedited third-party discovery is unwarranted at this stage.”
To wit, both Gabehart and Spire are calling Joe Gibbs Racing intellectually and legally dishonest in pursuing third-party discovery and subpoenas on a basis it also suggests should not apply to its own employees.
Dickerson challenges JGR in declaration
Joe Gibbs Racing specifically is asking for third-party subpoenas of the following individuals from the court believing that Dickerson has communicated with them in some form or shared trade secrets with them:
- Joe Custer, Haas Factory Team presdient
- Justin Marks, Trackhouse founding co-owner
- Todd Meredith, Trackhouse president of Racing Operations
- Rick Ware, Rick Ware Racing founding owner
- Tommy Baldwin, Rick Ware Racing competition director
In his declaration, Dickerson said it was untrue but also illogical that he would share any advantage with rival teams that aren’t even the one organization (Hendrick Motorsports) that Spire does have a technical alliance with.
From Dickerson’s new declaration:
“I have never shared JGR’s trade secrets or confidential information with any of these individuals or their teams. I do not possess JGR’s trade secrets, so could not have shared them.
“Putting aside that I do not have and never have had any JGR trade secrets or confidential information, and JGR has not shown any evidence to the contrary, these teams are Spire’s competitors. The notion that I would share any JGR trade secrets with Spire’s competitors is frankly preposterous, because Spire actively competes against these teams. That is why Spire itself does not share any of its own data directly with these competitor teams. JGR knows this.
“Spire does share certain of its own trade secrets and confidential information with its technical alliance partner, Hendrick Motorsports. Spire does not share any trade secrets or confidential information with any other General Motors race teams, including Haas Factory Team,Trackhouse Racing, and Rick Ware Racing. Hendrick Motorsports is widely considered the most successful team in NASCAR history.
“Notably, I understand that JGR has not sought any discovery from Hendrick Motorsports, which is the only entity Spire shares any of Spire’s data with.”
Translation, Dickerson is challenging JGR, if it truly believes Spire is using trade secreted information from the Toyota flagship, it is more likely that Hendrick Motorsports would be the one that would know … and not Haas, Trackhouse and Ware.
Legal filings
Spire response
Jeff Dickerson’s second declaration
Kevin Clarke’s declaration
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