Jeff Gordon's won twice at Kansas Speedway, but that was nine years ago. But his recent record, including five consecutive top-five finishes, has him barely able to wait for Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400.

It's what his team's done this season, but more important, what he feels they can do -- no, what they must do after a less-than-stellar start to the Chase for the Sprint Cup -- that has him more excited.

"Make or break doesn't mean we have to win this race but we need to come out of here with a strong performance."

--JEFF GORDON

"This was a great track for us earlier in the year so we're hoping we can simulate that performance and maybe come away with a little bit better result," Gordon said Friday after practice, when he lined-up third behind Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet teammates Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer. "Make or break doesn't mean we have to win this race but we need to come out of here with a strong performance -- I believe that, yes."

Gordon rolls into Kansas ninth in the Chase standings, 19 points behind leaders Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards. Given what he, crew chief Alan Gustafson and their team had established in the first 26 races of the season it's not where they anticipated being.

"Obviously two of the first three [Chase] races have not gone quite the way that we had hoped," Gordon said. "I'd say besides New Hampshire we kind of survived the other two. We knew that Dover was going to be a tough race for us. We didn't anticipate Chicago; so that one kind of threw us off a little bit.

"We know that [Kansas] starts our real run at this championship and we obviously can't afford to just survive any more races. We've got to get out there and put the numbers up and this is a great weekend for us to do that."

Gordon's enthused by what his team's shown him in 2011. Gordon does have four of his 11 top-five finishes this season in his past six starts. Unfortunately, he was 25th in the Chase opener at Chicagoland, fourth at New Hampshire -- where he led 78 laps -- then a scrambling 12th at Dover. Through it all his team's facilitated a great career rebound.

"They've just really done a great job analyzing the data at each track, especially when we've been to a track once," Gordon said. "I just love the way they break down all the information and go back through and how we debrief and prepare from a previous race. I feel like this team just knows how to get better over time.

"They're listening to what I need and providing me those tools to go out there and be strong. We might still miss it from time to time but I've got a lot of faith in their systems and the way that they go about it."

And then, even more than that, there's the "old school" Kansas weekend schedule, with a single practice Friday morning -- where Gordon concentrated on qualifying -- followed by qualifying late Friday afternoon. Both race practices are Saturday, in a roughly similar window to where Sunday's race, which starts at 2 p.m. ET, will be.

"We've been missing at qualifying -- that's the only thing we've really been not doing a great job at this year and that's something that we knew we needed to do better at in the Chase," Gordon said of his latest, 23rd, seventh and 34th efforts. "We've not done it so far.

"Hopefully we've learned something in these three races that can help us not continue down that path in qualifying."

More than anything, Gordon hit it on the head Friday, where he went out three cars from the end of the qualifying order and logged the 10th starting position. That might not have quite been what he expected, as it was four spots worse than Menard but 14 better than Bowyer, as they all trailed pole winner and two-time Kansas winner Greg Biffle.

As simple an aspect as Goodyear's tire was huge, Gordon said, of the difference between Chicagoland and Kansas -- at least so far.

"The difference is there is a different tire in Chicago and that tire is also the Texas tire and it just doesn't suit me very well," Gordon said. "I have a really hard time reading that tire and getting the balance right on that tire. This [Kansas] tire suits me a lot better. I just feel like I can lean on it and give better feedback back to the team to get the car doing what I need it to do.

"From what Goodyear says these two tracks, Chicago and here in Kansas, the loads are just different enough to where they need to change the tire for Chicago. So it's something we've got to get better at with that tire. That's why it caught us off guard [in the Chase opener] because we expected to be able to take something similar to what we have here and make it work in Chicago."

But the series is in Kansas this weekend, and Gordon's confidence is such that he's in a real comfort zone where he's learned to compartmentalize pressure to the point it has no effect.

"You just kind of approach it race to race, lap to lap and I've never changed how I do it," Gordon said. "When the car is right and your confidence is high and the team is supporting you and things are going well you go and you make it happen and you get the results."

Gordon's done that in his past five Kansas starts, so he feels good. But he also remembers Chases in 2004 and 2007 where he said, at times, he and his team fell short on their expectations.

"The key is living up to your full potential when you're at a track that is good and things are working well for you and then it's trying to manage those tracks that you know you struggle at," Gordon said, not only referring to Kansas but also just a little way down the schedule. "That's the thing -- there's nobody that just seems to dominate every race track. You've got guys that are going to struggle at certain tracks and you've just got to minimize that damage.

"That's what bothers me so much about Chicago. We were much better than a 24th- or 25th-place car. If we had come out of there with a 10th- or 12th-place finish like we did at Dover I'd be feeling a lot better; but at 24th or 25th you can't have another one of those."