Confirming what everybody already suspected.
Ty Gibbs is now in his fourth season as the driver of the #54 car for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. And obviously, it’s no coincidence that he has the same last name as his team owner: Ty is the grandson of legendary JGR team owner, and former coach of the Washington Redskins, Joe Gibbs.
The younger Gibbs is still in search of his first Cup Series win, despite driving for one of the sport’s top teams and a team that receives a ton of support from their manufacturer, Toyota.
In his three full seasons in the Cup Series, Gibbs has a career best finish of second, and a career best finish in the final season points standings of 15th. He’s come close to winning a few races, but he’s only made the playoffs once in his career and in fact was the only Joe Gibbs Racing car to miss the playoffs in 2025 after Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe and Christopher Bell all qualified for the postseason last year.
And look, Ty Gibbs is obviously a talented driver: He won the 2022 Xfinity Series championship and has 12 wins in the sport’s lower series. But his lack of results in the Cup Series obviously leads fans to ask the obvious question: Is he only in the car because his grandpa owns the team? Would he be on the hot seat (or have already been fired) if he drove for a team NOT named Joe Gibbs Racing?
Well we’re getting a closer look at the dynamic inside the JGR race shop thanks to a lawsuit filed by the team against their former competition director Chris Gabehart.
In case you missed it, JGR filed the lawsuit against Gabehart last week, accusing their former employee of stealing confidential information and providing it to another Cup Series team.
Gabehart first began working for Joe Gibbs Racing as an engineer in 2012, before eventually working his way up to crew chief for Hamlin from 2019 to 2024.
This past season, Gabehart was promoted to Director of Competition for JGR, but he mysteriously departed in November with no announcement or official word about his future in the sport or which team he would be going to.
The complaint filed by Joe Gibbs Racing in the federal court for the Western District of North Carolina shed more light on what led to the separation between Gabehart and the team, alleging that Gabehart became unhappy with his position at JGR during the 2025 Cup Series season and asked the team for “complete responsibility and control” of all departments supporting their competition efforts.
In November, Gabehart allegedly requested a meeting with team owner Joe Gibbs, where he asked for what the team said amounted to “carte blanche authority over all racing decisions.”
Gibbs refused to give more authority to Gabehart, who decided at that point to leave the company. As part of his contract with the team, Gabehart signed a non-compete agreement that would prohibit him from working for another Cup Series team for a period of 9 months after the termination of his contract, but JGR says that they were prepared to offer Gabehart “a generous separation agreement” that would have permitted him to work for another team so long as he didn’t solicit JGR employees and agreed to return all confidential information.
JGR says they learned that Gabehart had been meeting with Jeff Dickerson, owner of Spire Motorsports, and became suspicious of Gabehart. As a result, the team began to conduct a forensic audit of Gabehart’s team-issued laptop.
“The Results Were Shocking”
JGR says that Gabehart had synced his team laptop to his personal Google Drive, and created a folder called “Spire” that contained a subfolder named “Past Setups.” He also reportedly had “more than a dozen photos” containing JGR confidential information and trade secrets, as well as 20 race car setup files.
The lawsuit asks for damages “in excess of” $8 million for misappropriation of trade secrets and unfair trade practices, as well as an injunction forcing Gabehart to return any confidential information to JGR and cease from providing any of their trade secrets to other teams.
Gabehart was formally announced earlier this week as the Chief Motorsports Officer, but yesterday JGR requested an injunction prohibiting Gabehart from serving in that role for 18 months pursuant to his non-compete agreement, and also added Spire Motorsports to the lawsuit.
Today, Gabehart filed a response to the request for an injunction explaining more about his departure and the decline of his relationship with his longtime team.
In the affidavit, Gabehart claims that the Competition Director job at JGR was “not at all as advertised,” largely because decisions related to the #54 car of Ty Gibbs were often made by other Gibbs family members or Coach Gibbs himself:
“I further expressed serious concerns about the management of JGR’s No. 54 car, which is one of JGR’s four Cup Series entries. It was my view that the No. 54 car should be managed and held accountable in the same manner as the organization’s other cars. Instead, the No. 54 car was managed directly by Coach Gibbs and everyone in the organization knew it.”
Gabehart also describes being pressured by Joe Gibbs to take over as crew chief for Gibbs and the #54 car, a job he says he didn’t want and didn’t think was appropriate for a competition director.
He ultimately served as crew chief for nine races before stepping away from that role despite pressure from the team owner. But he also says that wasn’t the only example of Ty Gibbs receiving special treatment:
“For example, key personnel decisions were made without my counsel or input despite my role as Competition Director; and critically the No. 54 driver was not held to the same meeting attendance standards as others on the team.”
There’s a lot more in his affidavit too, including Gabehart admitting that he took photos of confidential JGR material, but the juicy part is obviously his feelings on Ty Gibbs and the special treatment he receives from the team.
Gibbs’ mother, Heather Gibbs, serves as a co-owner of JGR, and Ty is also frequently mentioned as an eventual successor as a team owner, so it’s not really any surprise that the driver of the #54 car is treated differently than the other drivers.
But the new information revealed by Gabehart certainly sheds new light on the dynamic inside the team – and confirms suspicions that fans have had for a long time.
