It’s never ideal when a racing series generates more attention from off-track legal activity than from its on-track product. But that’s the pattern NASCAR has fallen into recently. Soon after a long-standing dispute between teams and the stock car sanctioning body over terms of their charters or franchises was finally resolved, the high-profile Joe Gibbs Racing organisation brought a suit against Chris Gabehart, its former competition director. Gabehart believed he and JGR – founded in the early 1990s by former NFL football coach Joe Gibbs – reached a mutual agreement for his departure and he stopped working for Gibbs a week after the Cup Series finale in November 2025.
By early December, news of Gabehart’s exit started to leak, and rumours suggested he might be on the way to Spire Motorsports, a comparatively minor NASCAR team now under the TWG Motorsports umbrella that also includes the Andretti Global IndyCar team and Wayne Taylor Racing’s IMSA operations. Gabehart and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson are longtime friends. Prior to joining JGR in 2009, Gabehart had helped Dickerson set up Kyle Busch Motorsports; Dickerson co-formed Spire Motorsports in 2018 and Spire acquired the assets of KBM in 2023.
Gibbs suspected something foul was afoot, and in early February, JGR filed a suit in Federal court accusing Gabehart of a “brazen scheme” to steal proprietary company information in the form of computer files and screenshots. The suit was soon expanded to include Dickerson and Spire, and it was revealed that JGR had hired a private investigator who followed Gabehart and captured video of a lunch meeting between him and Dickerson.
Gabehart and Spire quickly responded with countersuits that seemed to confirm what many already believed: JGR’s main objective was to provide a coddling environment for Joe Gibbs’s grandson Ty Gibbs, a 23-year-old Cup Series driver who has been characterised as a spoiled brat since the very start of his career. In his final year with JGR, Gabehart, who was perennial frontrunner Denny Hamlin’s crew chief from 2019-24, was asked to act as crew chief for Ty Gibbs. Gabehart cited a lack of accountability from and favourable treatment for Ty, along with misrepresentation of his role as competition director, as his reasons for departing JGR, which officially terminated his employment on February 9.
Gabehart was announced as Spire’s chief motorsports officer on February 21, but the ongoing lawsuits restrict his ability to start with his new team while JGR attempts to enforce an 18-month gardening leave. The trial is currently set for November 16. Spire’s countersuits call JGR’s accusations “fantasies”, attribute JGR’s problems to nepotism and simple dysfunction, and deny that Gabehart has attempted to share any Gibbs-related information. Joe Gibbs Racing is the lead Cup Series team for Toyota, while Spire maintains a technical alliance with Hendrick Motorsports, the leading Chevrolet runner.
“Maybe it’s time to give the old ‘Field of 33’ tradition a rethink”
The sensationalist aspects of the court activity have helped distract from a lacklustre start to the Cup Series season. Toyota won six of the first eight races, four by Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing. And, as if on cue, Ty Gibbs claimed his first Cup victory at Bristol Motor Speedway as Motor Sport went to press.
The Indy 500 leans heavily on traditions, many of which were established decades ago. A field of 33 cars spread among 11 rows is as deeply entrenched in Indy lore as the four-lap qualifying run and the Borg-Warner Trophy.
Bump Day – the process of filling out the back of the grid – was often more dramatic than Pole Day, especially in the heyday when there were four qualifying days and sometimes dozens of entries would attempt and fail to qualify. These were often local hero ‘little guys,’ literally putting their lives on the line to make the big show. Qualifying for the Indy 500 could make or break their year.
But Bump Day also claimed its fair share of established stars, including Bobby and later Graham Rahal, Ryan Hunter-Reay, Paul Tracy, James Hinchcliffe, and most famously in 1995, the entire Penske team of Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser Jr. In 2019, Fernando Alonso was bumped out of the Indy 500 field, while Kyle Kaiser – who is now out of racing – bumped his way in.
