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Meanwhile, Judge Rodriguez has granted and denied, in part, Joe Gibbs Racing’s motion for a second bout of expedited discovery. Keep in mind, this is a more urgent discovery that is occasionally granted before standard discovery as a matter of the potential for harm.

This is what Judge Rodriguez granted:

Third party subpoena to Dickerson requesting production of all: (a) communications with Gabehart about employment or potential employment with Spire; (b) all documents referring to or referencing Gabehart’s employment or potential employment with Spire; (c) all documents or communications referring to or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets; and (d) all documents and data relating to activation and deactivation of autodelete features; Third-party subpoenas to Gabehart’s and Dickerson’s telephone providers requesting production of records reflecting Gabehart’s and Dickerson’s text messages and phone calls for the time period of October 1, 2025 through March 13, 2026; Court ordered forensic review of Dickerson’s cell phone(s), tablet(s) and computer(s) (collectively, “Devices”) to determine: (a) if text messages responsive to JGR’s Requests for Production of Documents to Gabehart are recoverable from those devices; and (b) when the autodelete function(s) on any of Dickerson’s Devices were activated.

This is what Judge Rodriguez denied:

*Requests**for production of documents on Spire requesting production of all: (a) Dickerson’s communications with Gabehart about employment or potential employment with Spire; (b) all communications and documents referring to or referencing Gabehart’s employment or potential employment with Spire; (c) all communications with Gabehart referring to or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets; (d) all documents relating to document retention policies and activation and deactivation of autodelete features; and (e) all data indicating when the autodelete feature(s) were activated on Dickerson’s Devices;*Third-party subpoenas to Joe Custer, Justin Marks, Todd Meredith, Rick Ware, and Tommy Baldwin for communications with Dickerson referencing or relating to JGR’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets Read Also:

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In other words, Judge Rodriguez is granting the immediate pursuit of the deleted text message exchange between Gabehart and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson, something they both say they have also previously and unsuccessfully attempted to retrieve from their cell phone providers.

What was denied is JGR’s attempts to go on what the judge called a ‘fishing expedition’ in subpoenaing third party representatives from Chevrolet teams to see if any of their trade secrets were shared from Spire. For their part, Spire has taken exception to this request because they felt like JGR should seek to subpoena Hendrick Motorsports if they really wanted to see what Spire was using this season, since that is actually their partnership organization.

If Spire is using it, Hendrick would see that reflected in their partnership, is the argument being made there. JGR has not subpoenaed Hendrick Motorsports.

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