I've been banished to the lower level, kicked out of my office, and I'm feeling nervous knowing there is phalanx of golden warriors in the same room with me, watching me, staring at me, keeping a close eye on my every move. They're small, but stout, and if they attack I'm going to have to use all of my guile and strength to overcome the onslaught...

It's not all quite as sinister as it sounds, and I wasn't sent to the basement for being a bad guy. Our house has actually been invaded by a two-man platoon of painters, and after moving in here seven years ago without so much as putting a brush or a roller on the walls, we're finally putting our own decorative stamp on this place. The color palette in our home was nice to begin with, so it wasn't like we walked in and cringed at bright blue or dark red walls, but after two years with the original owners and seven with us, the house was pretty nicked up and frankly Barbara was ready to try something different.

Our lower level, where I'm camped out for the next few days (thank heavens for wireless!) is relatively new, compared to the rest of the house, so it's not being repainted and has become my temporary office, as well as the storage spot for most of the photos and other things that had to be moved to let these guys get to work. I spent about three hours yesterday moving the Wally trophies (what's the plural of Wally? Wallys? Wallies? Wally's?) and all the other junk that was attached to the walls or on top of my office bookcases. Man, the stuff you collect…

Once they're done with my office, it will be time to redecorate in there, I think. Time to start fresh and not feel like every winner's circle photo I was ever in needs to be on the walls. The soldiers in the Wally Army can go back to their rightful places, but I need to think about the rest of it and, hey, I'll have plenty of time and opportunities to fill in every available space again! A couple of big wins for Team Wilkerson and we'll have a bevy of new Levi, Ray & Shoup photos to have framed and hung!

While I was removing items, it seemed like the appropriate time to actually clean out my office too, so I gutted everything out of all of the cabinets below the shelves, and that was a real chore. A couple of those cabinets were so stuffed with junk, the contents would immediately spill out as soon as you opened the doors, and I knew it was high time to purge the system, so this painting deal was the perfect excuse. I love my back issues of the National DRAGSTER as much as the next guy, but I drew the line at only keeping the ones where my team was on the cover, and that new rule completely cleared one full cabinet. Another cabinet was chock-full of old soccer and baseball pics in various types of frames that had (thankfully) lost their place on the walls but had not yet been completely eradicated from my office. They have now been boxed up and relegated to the basement. I'm not ready to lose any of them completely, but I guess I don't need them within arm's reach anymore. All in all, a great chance to rid my life of a lot of clutter…

While the guys were bringing all their gear in, we didn't want Da Boyce to panic and make a dash for freedom, so we put all their favorite stuff (that would be food, litter box, and bed, usually in that order) out on the porch and gave them their own outdoor living space for a few hours. Now, though, they're down here with me, taking turns napping in the "space station" or doing guard duty at the screen door. As I type, it's Boofus at the door, keeping track of all the little critters out there, while Buster gets a little shut-eye.

Now, on to the topic of racing. It's hard to believe the next step on the long road is the Western Swing, but here we go. Our team will be match racing this weekend, in Eddyville, Iowa, but Dave and I aren't really needed there and our travel budgets have us both looking like guys with their pockets turned inside-out, so we'll be staying home. I checked out Eddyville Raceway's website, though, and they're playing a cool "old school" commercial for the event, in the vein of the echo-effect voice and the "Be there, be there, BE THERE!" style. "See the people's champion Tim Wilkerson, and Iowa's favorite son Jack Wyatt…" If you're anywhere near Eddyville, stop on by and enjoy the holiday weekend with a nitro-style Night Of Fire.

After that, it's off to Denver and Thunder Mountain. Before you know it, six long plane trips, a trio of different hotels, three completely different parts of the country, and three more races will be in the books. From the mountains, to the forests, to Wine Country, boom, boom, boom.

I can't help being a "points watcher" in this business, and I'd conservatively estimate that such a characteristic makes me part of a majority that includes about 99 percent of the people involved in our chosen pursuit. A race doesn't go by without me adding up those precious Full Throttle digits, but now it's really getting to be crunch time and I can't help but start to lay out all of the possible ways things can go. Bottom line is this: Right now, there are 12 Funny Car teams fully capable and fully expecting to be a part of the Countdown, since Jim Head (13th) is apt to sit out some races and my buddies Jeff Arend (14th) and Jerry Toliver (15th) are now about 200 points out of 10th and would have to pretty much run the table to get in. The only problem, for all of us, is that pesky detail about only the top 10 teams moving on to the Countdown.

Right now, Tim is in seventh after our first-round loss in Norwalk, and he has 657 points. The lowest-ranked strong contender for the Countdown, as of today, is Robert Hight with 522. Does anyone really believe Robert and his team won't be right in the thick of it once the Western Swing is over? You'd be a fool to think otherwise.

Cruz Pedregon and Matt Hagan are currently tied for 10th, with 577 points, which means they are both exactly four rounds behind us. Mike Neff moved up to ninth in Norwalk, and he has 595 points. Directly behind us, in eighth with 631, is some guy named Force. John Force.

Basically, you can still run the simulations about a hundred different ways, but the net sum total of what we have to do is win rounds. If we keep winning rounds, there's no way to be knocked out and it's highly likely we will move back up (actually, that's a certainty if we win ENOUGH rounds). How many rounds? That would be the key question.

Let's start with the pessimistic "glass half-empty" simulation that includes no race wins for us between now and the conclusion of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals in Indy, and only includes an average of one round-win per race. Add to that a middle-of-the-pack qualifying effort at all six remaining races, and you're talking about 52 points per race, which would give Tim 969 points at the end of the regular season. For either Cruz or Matt to catch us (and since this is the "glass half-empty" simulation, we'll assume the other two guys behind us also get red-hot) one of them would have to win 10 rounds in the next six races, while we win only six.

Now let's look at the glass half-full and have the confidence that we are, indeed, going to win a solid number of rounds. I still won't factor in a win, but let's say we advance to the semifinals at three of the six remaining races and the second round at the other three. That's nine round-wins, total. Cruz or Matt would have to win 13 rounds in six races to catch us. And what if we did win a race and got to two semifinals and a trio of second-round finishes? That would be 11 round-wins, so Cruz or Matt would have to win 15 rounds in six races.

Now, let's say you aim for the top and want to get up to fourth or fifth place. “Fast Jack” and Del are about together up there, with Jack slightly ahead with 729 to Del's 727. That's four rounds of racing ahead of us, so all the math works just like it did above, except in reverse. Win some rounds, picking up one at four of the six races while you stay even at the rest, and there you go.

You can drive yourself batty with this stuff, but it sure is going to be a fun and exciting end to the regular season.

Before we get neck-deep in that endeavor, however, we have this weekend off. With Saturday being Independence Day for all of you who are, like me, an American, I wish everyone a very happy 4th of July!

Question: Do they have 4th of July in Australia? What about Great Britain? Or even Canada?

Of course they do! It comes right after the 3rd of July…

Oh, I have to tell you that I was pumped and thrilled to see that my good friend Grant Downing will be racing in Denver with Chuck Worsham helping him on the tune-up. Grant is an ace of a guy and one of the best chassis builders on the planet, so it's great to see him getting back out there. I traded notes with his wife Lynne last night, on our Facebook pages, and she's very proud of her man. Go get 'em, G. Just take it easy on us!

Wilber, out!