If the Hunts and Whitneys and the rest of the people who breed top-flight thoroughbred racehorses had a falling-out with the management of Churchill Downs and refused to enter the Kentucky Derby, they could still hold the race there but everybody would know it wasn't the Kentucky Derby.

They might call it that, but it wouldn't be the Kentucky Derby.

Oh sure, they'd have the usual 125,000 spectators, and ABC-TV would do the telecast, and everybody would be going crazy as a dozen or 15 candidates for the glue factory raced 'round the far turn, and Dave Johnson would still yell "And down the stretch they come!" and half an hour later, when the horses finally gasped their way across the finish line, there might even be a photo finish.

It would be wonderful entertainment and all very exciting, but it still wouldn't be the Kentucky Derby.

So it is with the Indianapolis 500. Tony George can talk all he wants about the Indy Racing League acquitting itself really well (is he kidding? Or what?) and Paul Page and Tom Sneva and the rest of the cheerleaders can go on and on about the sham that's now the 500 and everything that surrounds it (can you believe Page saying that 250,000 people "just loved" poor Florence Henderson's massacre of The Star Spangled Banner?), but while it might be a 500-mile race held in Indianapolis, it is just not the Indianapolis 500.

The Indianapolis 500 grew in its 81 years from what originally was an exhibition event into the most important race in the world. Think about that for a second: the most important in the world.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans used to hold that title. It used to be the most glamorous and prestigious motor-racing event on the planet. But not anymore. It is still a carnival. It is still the best summer party in France. It is still the best-attended race in Europe. But it doesn't count for much because at one time or another it stopped growing, it stopped trying, it started to stagnate.

Despite all the nonsense you hear about returning Indy to its "roots" where all the cars and drivers were American, Indianapolis always was an open-competition international event. In fact, to this very day the official name of the race is the "500-Mile International Sweepstakes."

Right from the get-go, back in 1911 and up nearly to the present, the Indianapolis 500 attracted the top racers and race cars from around the world. In the race's early years, European manufacturers such as Puegot, Mercedes, Maserati and Alfa Romeo raced at Indy; Jules Goux, Vincenzo Trucco, Josef Christiaens and Leon Duray were among the European drivers who travelled to Indiana to take on American speedsters such as Tommy Milton, Barney Oldfield, Eddie Rickenbacker and Wilbur Shaw.

Only during the immediate postwar years of the late forties and fifties was the Indianapolis 500 ever an "all-American" race. It was only during those 15 years -- 1946-1961 -- that the cars and motors were all American-made and the drivers all born in the good old USA. (In fact, in 1955 every car in the field was powered by a 270-cubic-inch Meyer-Drake Offenhauser and most were built by a California guy named Frank Kurtis.)

In 1961, Australian Jack Brabham arrived with his "radical, unconventional" Cooper-Climax and the Indy-car rear-engine revolution was started. And this brought the international drivers back: Canada's Billy Foster, Australian Denis Hulme, Austrian Jochen Rindt, Scotland's Jackie Stewart and England's Jimmy Clark and Graham Hill were all there. In fact, Clark and Hill both won the race -- in 1965 and '66.

The late sixties and early seventies were truly golden years for the Indianapolis 500. As well as the top U.S. oval racers of the day -- Sonny Ates, George Snider, Arnie Knepper, Larry Dickson, Gary Bettenhausen (not to forget Rutherford, Foyt and the Unsers) -- Indy also attracted NASCAR greats such as Bobby and Donnie Allison, Lee Roy Yarbrough and Cale Yarborough; California sports-car racers such as George Follmer, Ronnie Bucknum and Rick Muther; and American road-racers starring on the world sports-car and Formula One stage such as Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti and Peter Revson.

And international companies such as Brabham, Lola and Lotus were building the cars, as were Canadian and American entrepreneurs such as Grant King, Rolla Volstedt and A.J. Watson.

They all deserved to be there. The drivers were the cream of the crop of their day. The open competition among Indy-car owners, Indy-car chassis builders and Indy-car engine manufacturers ensured that only the finest and the fastest would be found at the Speedway.

It was the best race in the world. It truly was the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing."

Now the drivers at Indianapolis -- and this is with all due respect to Arie Luyendyk and Scott Goodyear -- are of the second tier or even lower. You really have to shudder at the thought of some of those guys even being allowed on the track.

And the rules for chassis and engine are reminiscent of the situation in 1955, which means evolution has been stopped in its tracks. Evolution of chassis and engine is what brought Indy to where it is today -- or, rather, where it was two years ago.

Indianapolis, like Le Mans, will always be huge and a wonderful party and carnival. But, also like Le Mans, it has lost its mantle.

Name it for a sponsor -- the Penzoil or STP or J.C. Penney 500, for example. Call it anything. But until it represents the very best of what the sport of Indy-car racing has to offer again, don't call it the Indianapolis 500.