One day after being sued by Joe Gibbs Racing over an alleged 'brazen scheme' to steal data from the organization while negotiating his employment separation and a job opportunity with Spire Motorsports, Chris Gaebhart responded with a statement that suggests he intends to challenge his longtime employer in court.

“Yesterday afternoon, Joe Gibbs Racing filed a lawsuit claiming - falsely - that I shared JGR confidential information with Spire Motorsports and/or other unnamed third parties. I feel compelled to speak out today and forcefully and emphatically deny these frivolous and retaliatory claims.”

The claim from Joe Gibbs Racing is that Gabehart, while serving in the capacity as competition director for the organization in 2025, created a folder called ‘Spire’ and synced proprietary information with his personal Google Driver.

Joe Gibbs Racing also accused Gabehart of taking photos of proprietary information with his cell phone and also backing it up to his personal accounts. The lawsuit says that Gabehart continued to access these files even on a day where he had a meeting with Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson.

The lawsuit says JGR was made aware of a discussion for Gabehart to join Spire as Chief Motorsports Officer. JGR claims that it learned much of this information after a third-party forensic examination.

In his statement, Gabehart said that Joe Gibbs Racing was offered an opportunity to conduct a forensic examination on Spire Motorsports but declined. Gabehart said he and his legal representation intend to file a detailed response to the lawsuit in the days to come.

“I look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate to the Court that I have not shared JGR's confidential information with anyone. In fact, I have already demonstrated that to JGR. A third-party forensic expert retained by JGR recently examined my laptop, cell phone and personal Google Drive and found no evidence to support the baseless allegations in JGR's lawsuit. We even offered JGR the opportunity to do a similar review of Spire's systems. JGR refused that offer and filed this spiteful lawsuit instead.

“Stay tuned. We will have much more to say in the legal response we will be filing in the coming days.”

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.

In the immediate aftermath of Justin Allgaier blocking Denny Hamlin from the lead and triggering 'The Big One' in the 68th Daytona 500, the JR Motorsports driver took ‘100 percent’ of the blame but the Joe Gibbs Racing contender conceded his share a day later.

The crash took place approaching the end of the second stage and collected 20 cars on Lap 124. Allgaier left about enough space for a car to fit between him and the wall so Hamlin took the run to the outside.

Allgaier shaded right and they both ended up in the wall with the field piling in behind them. Hamlin addressed the incident on Monday during his Actions Detrimental podcast season premier.

“Allgaier took 100 percent of the blame; I’ll take 20 of it,” Hamlin said. “I’ll take 20 of it because it was an aggressive move, but it’s coming at the end of the stage. He’s gotta know I’m gonna be aggressive, like, I’m gonna take every run I’m gonna get at the end of a stage because stage points do matter to me. I established very early I wanted to be in the top. It’s why once I cleared the bottom lane, I went right to the top. That’s where I wanted to be to end the stage. I was coming with such a massive run… I made up my mind probably 100 yards or so before I actually went high, I said, ‘I’m going to the outside no matter what,’ because I knew where he had run on the top before that, so I’d knew there’d be enough space.

“It was enough space, obviously, if he didn’t move up, I had outside position, but it probably happened so quickly that it caught him off guard. So, for me, I think my 20 percent is that he probably didn’t have a whole lot of time to react or see that was coming, therefore was late to react to it.”

Hindsight being 20/20, Hamlin would have approached that moment differently.

“Had I had it to do all over again, I would have stayed on (Allgaier),” Hamlin said. “We were running 10 mph faster than him at the time because of the push I got. If I go into the tri-oval and check-up for him, does (Ryan Blaney) just plow into the back of me? Probably not because he’s got a good spotter, he’s good driver, so they can know and plan for that kind of stuff, but it would have caused a huge domino effect had I checked up and not taken it.

“Or I could have just gone to the bottom and probably cleared him with the speed differential that I had. … Again, doing it all over again, had I known what the result was going to be, I would have just stayed in line there for a few more laps.”

Denny Hamlin has a Daytona 500 fuel saving pitch that involves The Clash

Zane Smith wanted Daytona 500 win but settles for good points day

Daytona 500 win special for Tyler Reddick spotter Nick Payne

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.