Dickerson Alleges JGR Never Came Through On Trade; Refutes Allegations

As the legal battle between Joe Gibbs Racing, its former competition director, Chris Gabehart, and Gabehart's new team, Spire Motorsports, wages on, we keep being shown new layers of onion that possibly laid the groundwork for how these two race teams found themselves to be seated across from one another in North Carolina District Court.

In a declaration from Jeff Dickerson, a co-owner of Spire Motorsports, which was added as a defendant in the lawsuit by Joe Gibbs Racing last month, Dickerson says a conversation with Joe Gibbs on pit road following a March 2025 race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar had a run-in on track, allowed him to sense that Gibbs needed a more mature and experienced group for JGR's No. 54 team and its driver, Ty Gibbs.

Dickerson says soon after that race, he touched base with Gabehart, then JGR's Competition Director, to float the idea that Spire Motorsports like had a crew chief and car chief that Joe Gibbs Racing would benefit from in regards to the No. 54 team.

Dickerson explained, "Around the same time, I learned that Coach Gibbs and Heather Gibbs had been in contact with the car chief for the No. 7 Spire car, Robert Smith. I learned that Heather Gibbs, in particular, had a friendship with Mr. Smith, and that Coach Gibbs and Heather Gibbs were actively recruiting Mr. Smith. Of course, conversations of this kind are entirely normal within the industry."

However, Dickerson notes that Smith, who Spire hired along with crew chief Rodney Childers, was under an active Spire Motorsports contract, which contained a non-compete provision extending through the end of his contractual term.

Dickerson explained that he was then torn about whether to release Smith, and hold him to the terms of the non-compete clause, or to go with another approach, which would benefit Spire, JGR, and Smith, equally.

That's when Dickerson says he offered Joe Gibbs Racing a chance to send Smith an acceptable offer to join their team. If Smith accepted, Spire would mutually agree to terminate his contract, and allow him to begin working for JGR immediately. However, as part of the trade agreement, Spire asked JGR to extend the same waiver for an employee that Spire would identify in the future.

Joe Gibbs Racing added the option of fulfilling the arrangement by making a $100,000 payment as an alternative to extending a waiver of an employee to Spire in the future. Dickerson agreed to the terms, and says it was his understanding that, "JGR would make good on our deal by the end of 2025."

JGR, according to Dickerson, has yet to pay Spire Motorsports the $100,000, and has declined several requests for potential waivers from Spire.

Dickerson says when Joe Gibbs Racing began utilizing Gabehart, who was also the competition director, as the crew chief for Ty Gibbs and the No. 54 team mid-season, Spire asked if JGR would be willing to release Gibbs' former crew chief Tyler Allen from his contract so Spire could potentially hire him. Dickerson says JGR rejected that request.

A couple of months later, Dickerson says Spire Motorsports asked if JGR would be willing to release the car chief, who Robert Smith took over for, so Spire could potentially hire him. Again, Dickerson says JGR rejected that request.

In October 2025, Dickerson met with Gabehart over dinner in Mooresville, North Carolina, to catch up, and for Dickerson to pick Gabehart's brain about who at JGR may be available to fulfill JGR's end of the trade. Dickerson says the meeting being held publicly at a popular restaurant, where many in the industry were attending that same night, indicates he wasn't acting inappropriate by meeting with Gabehart, who he says is a long-time friend.

Dickerson says it was at this meeting that Gabehart opened up to him about his "concerns and misgivings with his experience at JGR, and that he intended to have a serious conversation with Coach Gibbs to try to fix the current situation and chart a path for the future."

According to Dickerson, he knew after the meeting with Gabehart that the workplace environment at JGR must have been toxic and unsustainable, but at the end of the dinner, Dickerson still had no insight on who might be traded back to Spire.

The trade details between JGR and Spire Motorsports for car chief Robert Smith is a new revelation that has been unearthed through the litigation of this case.

After outlining the unfulfilled trade situation, Dickerson then begins to defend the allegations against Spire Motorsports for the remainder of his declaration.

Dickerson says on or around November 11, 2025, Gabehart infomed him that he and Coach Gibbs had agreed to a mutual separation on November 6, 2025, and Gabehart stated that he was subject to a one-week non-compete provision. Dickerson was unaware of any additional non-compete provisions in Gabehart's contract with Joe Gibbs Racing until he saw the agreement in court.

Exactly a week after the mutual separation, on November 13, 2025, Dickerson gave Gabehart a loose framework of what an offer from Spire Motorsports might look like.

Once Gabehart informed Dickerson in mid-November that JGR had stopped paying him, he felt he needed to work quickly to hire Gabehart before another competitor took him off the market.

Dickerson met with Gabehart on December 2, 2025, for lunch at Barcelona Burger and Beer Garden in Mooresville, North Carolina, a restaurant adjacent to the Toyota Gazoo Racing Garage. The importance of the restaurant being next to the Toyota Gazoo Racing Garage is that JGR is a Toyota team, and Dickerson says the fact that he had no concerns about any Toyota employee seeing him eating lunch with Gabehart was because he understood there to be no applicable non-compete in place from JGR.

Dickerson added, "And, even if a non-compete had been in place, there is nothing that prevents me from eating lunch with a friend."

This was the lunch where Dickerson and Gabehart were photographed by a private investigator that had been hired by Joe Gibbs Racing.

As for the private investigator, Dickerson says, "I was surprised and, quite frankly, disturbed to learn that a competitor in our industry had hired someone to follow its former employee around. I cannot stress this enough: It is extraodinary for an organization in our business to hire a private investigator to follow around any employee, let alone a former employee. In my twenty-five years of experience in this industry, I have never once heard of a team doing so."

Dickerson recalls Joe Gibbs Racing sending a demand letter to Gabehart on December 15, 2025, asking him to submit to a forensics test of his devices. Dickerson retierates, "To be clear, Spire never asked for, did not want or need, and does not want or need any information from Mr. Gabehart that was the property of JGR. Spire has its own technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsports, who holds the Cup Series record for wins at 320 and 15 championships, and otherwise has no need for JGR's information."

Gabehart has also denied the allegations that he has shared proprietary JGR information.

Dickerson says that Gabehart was supposed to start working for Spire Motorsports on February 7, 2026, but because of a delay in negotiating his employment agreement, he didn't officially start working with Spire until February 16, 2026. Dickerson says he was "shocked" upon learning that JGR sent Gabehart a letter on February 9, 2026, stating that the team was terminating his employment for cause, because his understanding was that Mr. Gabehart and Mr. Gibbs had agreed to part ways on November 6, and that JGR had stopped paying Gabehart on November 10.

Dickerson explained, "Due to my experience as a business owner, I thought it was clear that JGR had terminated Mr. Gabehart on November 10, 2025, when they stopped paying him, and in any event, Mr. Gabehart had informed me that he had mutually separated from JGR as early as November 6, 2025."

Dickerson continues to state that Gabehart's role with Spire Motorsports is not similar to the role he held at Joe Gibbs Racing of competition director. Dickerson says Gabehart was not brought in to replace Matt McCall, the Spire Motorsports competition director. He says when Spire Motorsports driver Daniel Suarez asked him, "Whose job is Chris Gabehart taking?" Dickerson responded, "Mine."

Dickerson also vehemently denies the allegations from Joe Gibbs Racing that Spire Motorsports improperly pursued JGR's sponsors in 2026, adding, "Spire has every right to pursue sponsors, and that is part of the business." Dickerson said, "JGR knows this, because it is exactly what JGR does. JGR frequently pursues sponsors who it knows are already under contract with other teams," and even alleged that Joe Gibbs Racing was openly pursuing a sponsor this past weekend, who currently sponsors a different team in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series.

And Dickerson even states that Spire, and previously, Spire Sports + Entertainment, have actually helped drive sponsors to JGR.

"I have gone out of my way to leverage my connections and relationships over the years to assist Coach Gibbs and JGR when they told me they were in need of help," Dickerson said.

Dickerson alleges that Joe Gibbs Racing has intentionally stages the litigation to interfere with Spire Motorsports' legitimate business operations, and to disrupt Spire's motorsports teams mid-season, and Dickerson states that Spire Motorsports would suffer harm if Gabehart is forced to leave Spire.

On March 2, Judge Susan C. Rodriguez, instituted a temporary restraining order against Spire Motorsports and Chris Gabehart, which limits the scope of work Gabehart is able to do for the team. The TRO runs through March 16.