Nashville Bike Week: Ex-Con Promoter Blames Lawyers For Venue Announcement Delay

HURRICANE MILLS, TN — The convicted swindler promoting September's Nashville Bike Week set his own deadline to announce a new venue for the 10-day event expected to tens of thousands to the tiny town of Hurricane Mills. Friday, that noon deadline came and went.

Loretta Lynn's Ranch backed out of hosting the event scheduled for September 14-24 because organizers "failed to meet the financial terms" of an agreement but missing deposit deadline. The promoter, "Mike Axle" — real name Michael Leffingwell, said a new venue, close to Lynn's property and even larger than before, would be announced noon Friday (for more on Nashville Bike Week and other local news, subscribe to your Middle Tennessee Patch).

At 12:45 Friday afternoon, the Nashville Bike Week posted a message saying that the venue announcement wasn't quite ready for prime time. "Unfortunately attorneys don’t work on our timeline. They are still working to hammer out the details of the lease and are close," the post read.

In a later message, the event emphasized that there was still plenty of time before the event to get all the details — minor things like where it's going to be held — hammered out. Four times the missive reminded readers the event is eight months hence.

After Loretta Lynn's ranch backed out, questions began to be raised about the legitimacy of the event and that of its organizer. Leffingwell has been charged several times in Davidson County for theft. He was sentenced to years of jail time after scamming a home owner by taking a deposit for fencing work and never completing the job or returning the deposit. He's also been charged with similar crimes in Williamson and Maury counties, according to NewsChannel 5.

In 2007, Leffingwell was sentenced to three years in federal prison and ordered by a U.S. District Court Judge in Missouri to pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars in restitution after defrauding numerous companies by presenting himself as a NASCAR truck series driver and signing those companies up for advertising deals for the 2006 NASCAR season. Leffingwell drove in just four NASCAR events between September 2001 and July 2005 and in none after engaging in his scheme. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and for failure to appear.
Leffingwell has also been the subject of numerous Better Business Bureau complaints, not just in Tennessee but in West Virginia as well, typically about uncompleted but paid-for work.

Leffingwell also has outstanding warrants for probation violations in Missouri and Georgia, as well as Maury County, according to News 2.