Joe Gibbs Racing is now suing Spire and Chris Gabehart — and more

During a 20-minute interview with the media Tuesday, new Lakers president of business operations Lon Rosen said Magic Johnson won’t be involved in any “day–to-day” involvement with the team and that hopes season-ticket holders will “renew” them despite the enormous increase for next season.

Rosen, who has been an executive vice president and chief marketing officer with the Dodgers since 2012 when Mark Walter and Guggenheim Baseball Management purchased the club, took over the Lakers job after Tim Harris resigned from that role.

Rosen, who is back with the Lakers after Walter purchased the team for a $10-billion evaluation, was asked about Johnson’s role with the Lakers and how he would be involved with Rob Pelinka, the team’s president of basketball operations and general manager.

Johnson was president of basketball operations for the Lakers from Feb. 21, 2017 until April 9, 2019, when he abruptly resigned.

Read more:Lakers are trying to unlock the greatness in Deandre Ayton

“Earvin's involved with all types of things. He owns football teams, baseball teams, soccer teams, insurance companies, a lot of things. He's always gonna have some type of involvement with all the teams, but he is not gonna have a day-to-day involvement (with the Lakers),” Rosen said. “It's gonna be no different since he left the Lakers. Obviously he's a huge fan of the Lakers, but he's not gonna be, 'Hey Rob go sign this player. Do that.' He'll always be involved with all the teams that he's involved in, but no, he's not gonna have day-to-day involvement at all. He is a super Laker fan and he'll continue to be a super Laker fan. It's not bad to have that. You see the involvement he had the other day when Pat (Riley) was here (to have his statue unveiled) and he'll always be involved that way.”

Rosen was asked about ticket prices increasing for the 2026-27 season.

There have been reports from Lakers fans that gave an example of their tickets in the 300-level increasing to over 45% from $6,192 to $9,035.

One fan said his increase was about 15% and another 3% fee if the tickets were not paid for upfront.

“We hope they renew. And obviously it reflects on what the market is now and the demand for tickets,” Rosen said. “You can look at how tickets sell and what the prices are. You look at primary and secondary market and you can see where their demand is.”

Pelinka told the media after the trade deadline that he’ll work with Walter and Jeanie Buss, who is still the board of governor for the Lakers, when it comes time to make basketball decisions this summer.

Both Andrew Friedman, the president of baseball operations for the Dodgers, and Farhan Zaidi, an special advisor with the Dodgers, will be advisors for the Lakers and Pelinka. Zaidi was seen at the Lakers’ practice facility Monday.

“Rob's empowered to do what he does,” Rosen said. “And he's talked about it and I can talk about it. Andrew Friedman and Farhan Zaidi, they have involvement helping Rob a bit. It gives you a deeper bench, and I think Rob appreciates that. And it is unique. But they have a skill set that they can transfer some of it here. And that's really how we look at it. Look, I have a really good relationship with Rob. I've known Rob Pelinka from when he was representing Kobe (Bryant). I met him many many years ago."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Joe Gibbs Racing has amended its lawsuit against Chris Gabehart and has now extended those claims against Spire Motorsports while also asking the Western District of North Carolina to enforce a restraining order to prevent the pairing from continue working together.

Spire Motorsports confirmed over the weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway that it has hired Gabehart, a longtime engineer turned crew chief and one year competition director at Joe Gibbs Racing, to serve as Chief Motorsports Officer.

JGR sued Gabehart last week -- alleging a violation of non-compete agreements and a ‘brazen scheme’ to steal proprietary competition trade secrets and take it with him to Spire when overtures for a de facto promotion were declined by team owner Joe Gibbs.

Joe Gibbs Racing claim that Gabehart created a folder titled ‘Spire’ from his work computer and synced the information within the team’s database to his personal Google Drive. The team claims Gabehart took photos of set-up information on his personal phone for the purpose of taking it with him to Spire.

It accused Gabehart of accessing JGR’s database even on a day in which he met with Spire Motorsports team co-owner Jeff Dickerson. Through the first week of the litigation, JGR had not named Spire as a defendant but did so on Tuesday night with the amended filing.

The new claims against Spire are detailed below, exact quotes from the filing, italicized for clarity:

“Spire knowingly, intentionally, unjustifiably, and in bad faith induced Gabehart to breach his contract with JGR by (1) soliciting and hiring him to work for Spire, and/or (2) requesting, encouraging, or otherwise inducing him to disclose or use Plaintiff’s trade secrets or confidential information.

“As a direct and proximate result of Spire’s misconduct, Plaintiff has suffered and continues to suffer damages in an amount to be proven at trial, and irreparable harm by way of, among other things, loss of competitive advantage, and loss of confidential information.”

As part of the expanded lawsuit, Joe Gibbs Racing is asking the court for a restraining order that prevents Gabehart from working at Spire Motorsports if in any capacity similar to that of his role as competition director last year but also deploying any ‘trade secrets’ acquired during his time with his previous employer. JGR is asking the court to force Gabehart to return any proprietary material he may have in his possession.

Joe Gibbs Racing states in the filings that it will suffer irreparable harm due to Gabehart and the alleged data he took with him to Spire being used to replicate their set-ups due to how competitively similar everyone’s NextGen cars are.

“Because all teams now race the same car and obtain car components from the same suppliers, understanding only a small portion of the details of how a competitor sets up its cars would allow other teams to extrapolate on that information and recreate a successful car setup.

“As a result, car setup, analytics, and race strategy have become increasingly important as competitive differentiators in NASCAR since the introduction of the NextGen car in 2022. This information is highly guarded.

“Consequently, such misuse, disclosure, or dissemination of JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets would result in impaired ability to compete, lost profits and business opportunities, and reputational harm, among other injuries.”

The complete amended filing can be found below with additional details below that. 

JGR vs Gabehart, Spire by mattweavermedia

In filing the motion for injunctive relief and a restraining order, Joe Gibbs Racing also stated that neither Spire nor Gabehart are voluntarily consenting, and thus both will have to be issued by Judge Matthew Orso.

“Counsel for JGR has conferred with counsel for Gabehart concerning the relief requested in the Motion, and counsel for Gabehart has indicated Gabehart does not consent to the relief requested in the Motion. Similarly, JGR has conferred with Spire concerning the relief requested in the Motion, and Spire does not consent to the relief requested in the Motion.”

The restraining order and injunctive relief motion can be found below, with additional information below that.

2 24 2026 Restraining Order Motion by mattweavermedia

The amended complaint and restraining order motion also included written declarations from JGR competition director Wally Brown, who resumed the role he held before briefly turning it over to Gabehart last year but also chief financial officer Tim Carmichael.

The third declaration is from Clark C. Walton, a 'forensics expert for Reliance Forensics, and a licensed attorney who was retained by JGR for the Gabehart case and oversaw the analysis of the files that led to this lawsuit.

Walton said his firm observed the following Google search history

Additionally, Walton cited the following discoveries:

"Reliance also observed synced activity on the JGR Computer related to a Google Drive account associated with Gabehart's personal Gmail address. The Known Synced Google Drive appears to have been synced with the JGR Computer. The Known Synced Google Drive account contained a folder named 'Spire' which contained a subfolder named 'Past Setups.' Reliance did not access the contents of The Known Synced Google Drive account itself as part of its initial review of the JGR Computer. Reliance observed interactions with the Spire Folder on November 12, 13, 15, 23, 25, 26, 27 and December 2, 2025 as stated below. The Last Viewed Time shown on this report generally indicates that time that a folder on file was last opened."

Walton detailed alleged access of 'https://apps.jgrcloud.com/,' 'https://analytics.joegibbsracing.com,' 'https://joegibbsracing-my.sharepoint.com,' and 'https://trdhydra.toyota.com/,' in mid to late November.

The report details times that an unknown account and one account associated with what appears to be Gabehart's personal email address accessing JGR's database.

The full Walton declaration can be found below.

2 24 2026 Walton Declaration by mattweavermedia

Chris Gabehart 'emphatically denies' Joe Gibbs Racing lawsuit allegations

Joe Gibbs Racing also responded to Gabehart's statement that 'emphatically denied' the allegations. 

“The statement was materially false and misleading. First, the forensic expert engaged by JGR confirmed that Defendant had taken JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets, including financial information Gabehart expressly denied taking on December 17, 2025.

“Second, the forensic expert informed Gabehart through his counsel that the review did not demonstrate Gabehart had not shared JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets with third parties or saved the materials Gabehart did take in different locations. Indeed the forensic review team noted that the review ‘did not exclude the possibility of [JGR] files being sent via email from a web portal, being sent via text message then deleted the message, shared directly via Google Photos or any other fileshare site.”

Gabehart has said he will file a response in the coming days.

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