Chris Gabehart started at Joe Gibbs Racing as an engineer who cut his teeth in the lower stock car series. In late 2018, they handed him the keys to Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Cup car for the 2019 season, and the two of them lit the place up. Eleven wins in their first fifty-two races together, a ridiculous twenty-one percent win rate, two Daytona 500 trophies, short tracks, mile tracks, superspeedways, you name it.

They became one of the most feared pairings in the garage. Now the rumor mill says Gabehart is about to walk away from JGR completely.

Chris Gabehart heading to Spire?

Word on the street is that Chris Gabehart, the guy who spent six seasons turning Hamlin’s ideas into victories, is packing his toolbox and heading to Spire Motorsports. Not just for a weekend, not just as a consultant, but in a big competition role that could shape the whole team.

Nothing is official yet. No press conference, no goodbye post, no Spire welcome graphic. Just a lot of very convinced people whispering that it’s happening. Last year, JGR moved Gabehart off the pit box and made him Competition Director so he could help all four Cup cars instead of just the No. 11.

The team called it a promotion. Chris Gayle slid into the crew chief spot for 2025, and everyone smiled and said it was about spreading the knowledge. Except people inside the building say Hamlin was genuinely shocked when he heard the news. Losing the guy who’s been in your headset for twenty-two wins and two Daytona 500s is tough enough when he’s still down the hall. Losing him to another team completely is a different kind of hurt.

Spire has been on a shopping spree lately, buying charters, hiring young talent, and throwing money around like they’re trying to go from scrappy underdog to legit threat overnight.

Bring in Gabehart, and suddenly they’ve got someone who knows exactly how a championship-caliber operation runs, how to set up a car to win on any kind of track, how to call a race from the box when the pressure is sky high. That’s not just adding a crew chief. That’s adding a blueprint.

The timing makes it worse. The whole sport is already on edge with the charter trial, teams fighting for every dollar, and now one of the sharpest minds in racing might be switching uniforms.

For Hamlin, it would feel personal. Chris Gabehart didn’t just call strategy; he spoke Hamlin’s language. They finished each other’s sentences on the radio, read each other’s minds on adjustments, and celebrated in victory lane like brothers. Twenty-two times they did that dance. If Gabehart walks out the door to help someone else beat the 11, it’s going to sting way more than any on-track loss.

Again, nothing is confirmed. JGR isn’t saying a word, Spire isn’t saying a word, Gabehart isn’t saying a word. But in NASCAR, when the smoke keeps getting thicker, and nobody is grabbing a fire extinguisher, there’s usually a flame somewhere.

The same week, when the Gabehart to Spire talk started heating up, Denny Hamlin was on the stand in the antitrust trial, and he casually dropped another bomb.

Hamlin confirms his monster JGR salary

When the lawyers started poking around driver pay, Hamlin just told them straight: he makes around fourteen million dollars a year from Joe Gibbs Racing, with two more seasons left on the deal.

Fourteen million dollars a year. That’s the kind of paycheck you only hand someone when you know they can deliver, and Gabehart was a huge part of delivering it. When asked why was his salary higher than most drivers, he couldn’t give a more Hamlin-like answer.

“I am at the top of my game.”

Every one of those wins, every Daytona 500, every time Hamlin stood on the roof of the car waving to the crowd, Gabehart was the voice in his ear making it happen.

Now imagine writing a fourteen-million-dollar check to a guy while the crew chief who helped earn it might be headed out the door to help someone else do the same thing to you. That’s the kind of week Denny Hamlin is having. One day, he’s fighting for the future of team owners in court, the next, the garage is buzzing that the guy who helped him justify every penny of that salary might be gone for good.

Whether Gabehart stays or goes, one thing is clear: the partnership that gave us some of the best racing of the last six years is already different, and it might be about to change even more. In a sport where relationships win championships, losing the guy who knew you better than anyone is the kind of shake-up nobody saw coming.