KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Matt Kenseth knows his best chance of advancing to the semifinal round of the playoffs is to win Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
He also knows the reaction of many of those wondering if he actually can win.
"Show me," Kenseth said.
Kenseth is one of three former NASCAR Cup champions on the bubble trying to avoid elimination in the final race of the quarterfinal round of 12. The four playoff drivers who are winless in the playoff round while being worst in points will be eliminated.
Kenseth, the 2003 Cup champion, sits 10th in the standings, one point behind 2015 champ Kyle Busch and eight points behind seven-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who currently holds the last spot before the cutoff.
For Kenseth, a win and the automatic bid that goes with it would be nice. But he has a 48-race winless streak.
"It's been a long time," said Kenseth, who doesn't have a ride for next year and could be staring at an involuntary retirement after 2017. "So when you look at it like that, you're like, 'Show me.' We haven't been able to do it yet.
"I hope to at least get a win before the year's over. We got five chances left, got some great racetracks coming up. We just got to get our cars running a little bit better."
Even a driver such as Busch isn't counting on a win.
"My percentage of winning in this sport is 9½ or 10 or 11, something like that," said Busch, who has won 9.2 percent of his Cup starts. "It's not very good. So we've got to go out there and just perform and know that we need a win.
"A win would make everything easy. From there, you have to focus on what other things you need to do throughout the day."
While Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (22 points behind the cutoff) and Jamie McMurray (29 points behind) pretty much need wins, the champions vying for spots don't need to win.
With 10 points available in each of the first two stages, the drivers don't even know where they need to finish. They will have a much better idea after the first two stages.
On 1.5-mile tracks, Busch has averaged 4.7 points per stage. Kenseth has averaged 3.4, and Johnson has averaged 2.5.
Kenseth and Busch don't necessarily have to beat Johnson to advance. Busch is nine points behind Ryan Blaney (seventh in the standings), but rallying to gain 20 points to pass Chase Elliott (sixth) is much more challenging unless Elliott has trouble.
"I look at it as out-finishing the 48 [of Johnson] and the 21 [of Blaney] by three, four spots each stage, each round, in order to make up enough points to pass them both," Busch said. "Whether that's doable or not, we'll see. We'll certainly try.
"We'll fight hard, hopefully run up front all day long. We've done that this year. We did that here in the spring. We just need to back it up and do it again when it's crunch time."
Among the bubble drivers, Kenseth will start fourth, Busch eighth and then Johnson 13th. Kenseth doesn't put a great deal of stock in out-qualifying the other standouts.
"I didn't even think about that until you asked me," Kenseth said. "It was a good qualifying run for us. We have been pretty decent on Fridays, so tomorrow [in practice Saturday] will be the good test."
Johnson starting 13th is not great, but it's better than his average starting spot of 17th this year. His poor qualifying has resulted in a lack of stage points.
"When I look at the fact that I out-qualified my teammates, we got faster through the rounds, starting closer to the front than we have in quite a few weeks. There are some good takeaways," Johnson said.
Johnson shouldn't feel too much pressure. In the elimination-style format, he has had a piece break at Dover that knocked him out of contention, and then he won his seventh title in 2016 despite not having the best car at Homestead -- but he took advantage of opportunities and the car coming to life for the final laps.
"It's all circumstances," Johnson said about the current format. "That gives us some optimism. We haven't had the exact year that we've wanted. The No. 78 [of Martin Truex Jr.] has really kind of been in control of the year, and I think we are all jealous of the situation those guys are in.
"But I keep telling myself, what happened last year, we have to make the final four. And then in Homestead, who knows what will happen in that race, and last year is proof of that."
Going into this race, beyond Truex and Brad Keselowski (who both won earlier in the round), the only driver without a win this round who controls his own destiny is Kyle Larson. He starts the race 29 points ahead of the current cutoff and needs at least a third-place finish to earn a spot in the next round. He is followed by Kevin Harvick (22-point cushion), Denny Hamlin (21 points) and Elliott (20 points).
Harvick will start second, while Hamlin starts fourth, Larson 13th and Elliott 14th. Blaney, whose qualifying time was disallowed for failing post-qualifying tech, will start last in the 40-car field.
"As you look at the circumstances, you just never know what's going to be presented to you on a given day," said Harvick, who won the title in 2014 in the first elimination-style format. "But I think of the things that we can control. So far we've done a good job of qualifying up front. We'll have a good pit stall.
"We'll have good track position, and doing all the things that you need to do to score points in the first stage -- and that's really the first goal of the day, to score as many points that you can in the first stage and go from there."