This is The Statt Mann, Baby. It's time to Scatt a little bit.

The original concept of a five million dollar Indy Car bonus to win a certain race was fun.

The mind wandered to several names like Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 F1 champion who's now in the World Rally Championship.  Or Juan Pablo Montoya, a seven-time winner in F1 who's now in NASCAR. Or even Petter Solberg, the 2003 WRC champion who's tested an F1 car in his time.

But now there's word that AMA Supercross legend James Stewart may consider it even though he's never competed in a four-wheel race car at any level of consequence.

Now, even if that was for grins and giggles and just reflected the hype of the moment, there's something that's going wrong with this promotion and it needs to be reigned in a bit. Certainly Indy Car is returning to the cultural conversation even though the season won't start for another two weeks.

But, to me, the greater concern is the minimalization of the highspeed beauty and danger in the discipline. It makes the sport of Indy Car racing look like a circus act.  It's as if anyone can get off or out of anything and go challenge people like Dario Franchitt and Scott Dixon and Will Power and Helio Castroneves just because a big check is at stake.

That's the wrong message to be posting in the current cultural forums, don't you think?

Peace.