agingrebel.com
Nashville Bike Week is still calling
itself Nashville Bike Week even though it will now happen, if it
happens, at the American Rebel Mud Park which is 12 miles north of
Waynesboro, Tennessee. Waynesboro is 100 miles from Nashville.
Mike Leffingwell, the conman with
several names who is stuck in jail in Bowling Green, Kentucky, agreed
this week not to contest extradition to Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri
where he is a wanted man. Nashville Bike Week was Leffingwell’s dream
but now the torch has been passed to Janelle Roberts – who is the blonde
in the photo above and the video below – and Stan Chiras, also in the
photo above, who used to sell snakes in Florida but now owns American
Rebel Mud Park.
Chiras runs events called “Rockin on the
River” at his mud park. There is one this weekend that will feature
“mud wrestling, hill’n hole mud drags, dirt drags, hot wheels downhill,”
“super burgers. nachos. dogs. crawdad boil” and a guy named Brad who
will let you shoot his Barrett .50 caliber rifle if you pay him.
Bad News
The bad news is that the Nashville Bike
Week has gotten off to a very rough start. Leffingwell sold tickets for a
year and at least 4,700 people gave him money. A ticket receipt
obtained by The Aging Rebel lists “early bird” ticket charges of $200 per person, an “RV parking” pass that cost $500 and a beer pass that cost $150.
The event was originally scheduled for
Loretta Lynn’s Ranch and Camp Grounds, then for the Opryland Hotel and
now for Chiras’ Mud Park. Chiras told Nashville television station WKRN,
“When I heard the Opryland venue fell through I reached out to the
organizers and told them about my place. I talked to Mike that day, but
he ended up getting arrested that afternoon.”
At least a million dollars is missing
and Chiras has no clue about where it might be. “I’m trying to figure
out what has happened. How much money came in. Where the money went. Who
we have commitments to,” Chiras said.
Earlier this year Leffingwell claimed to
have invested $900,000 in the event. A Facebook page called Nashville
Bike Week Scam claims to have helped disgruntled ticket holders get
$80,000 in refunded credit card charges.
Janelle Roberts
Besides Leffingwell, the only Nashville
Bike Week “organizer” anybody has been able to identify is Roberts and
she denies it. She told WKRN, “she is an independent agent
contracted to promote Nashville Bike Week. She also said Axle is no
longer affiliated with the organization, though they are working to
uphold some of the contracts he signed.”
“People are really excited about it,”
she said on camera. “I think with it being so close to the event date
people are excited to have somewhere to go first of all.”
She took a slightly different tone on
Nashville Bike Week’s Facebook page. A follower complained that the Mud
Park in Waynesboro is “kinda far” from Nashville.
The administrator of the page, and so
far Janelle Roberts is the only suspect, answered “Yeah so do we, but
bankruptcy is a lot further.”
The worst news about Nashville Bike Week
is that every day this festival is starting to look like the biggest
fiasco since the Celebration of Life Festival. That one was on the banks
of the Atchafalaya River near McCrea, Louisiana in June 1971. This one
is on the banks of the Buffalo River. That one, by all accounts, was a
drug, violence and mud soaked hell. This one has high hopes.
The most obvious thing for Roberts and whoever else is neck deep in
this scam would be to give back the money and walk away. The emerging
mystery is why she will not do that.
This going to make a great movie!