Reality Check: Third round roughest in NASCAR's Chase

"Challenger," "Contender" and "Eliminator" are catchy ways to brand the rounds that comprise the Chase for the Sprint Cup. They hardly convey the actual circumstances that are culling the field in NASCAR's reformatted 10-race playoff.

The opening three-race stanza, which featured no surprises, could have been dubbed "Perfunctory."

"Calamity" was the perfect descriptor for a second round in which contenders were erased by uncontrollable crashes and befuddling tire problems.

So what's the unofficial tagline for the third round, which opened with a bang at Martinsville Speedway and continues Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway?

"Reality."

The reality in this case being that only four drivers will advance to the one-race championship in the Nov. 16 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway — despite the fact everyone bought into proclaiming themselves a lead-pipe cinch after outlasting the terror of Talladega Superspeedway.

For the omnipresent dread that surrounded the concluding race of the Contender Round, there was an equal amount of guileless cheer gushing from the eight remaining contestants during the Eliminator Round Media Day on the Tuesday before Martinsville.

Jeff Gordon: "I love our chances. My whole goal when I knew we had fast cars and a shot at a championship was to get through that (second) round to (the third) round. This is where we're going to shine. There's such a realistic chance to not only win one or a couple of these races coming up."

Denny Hamlin: "I love our chances of a shot at a championship at Homestead. Looking at these three tracks, I can win any of them. Easily. I feel like I'm pretty confident."

Carl Edwards: "If we could get to this round, these are the tracks on which we could step it up. … I feel more confident making it to the (third) round than I did about either of the first two rounds. If we don't make it to Homestead, I will be a little bit shocked and definitely disappointed."

NASCAR's sponsor-driven business model always breeds an overwhelming confidence predicated on the salesmanship required to cash multimillion-dollar checks — check the transcripts from Daytona 500 Media Day, and you'll be convinced the Great American Race will have at least 43 winners — but this was strikingly optimistic.

And considering every Chase driver squandered the opportunity of winning Martinsville to guarantee a slot at Homestead, it also seems extraordinarily misplaced.

Did surviving Talladega lull drivers into letting their guards down? There had to be some false sense of security because the track built such a fearsome reputation as the looming wild card since the Chase's 2004 inception.

After dashing the dreams of so many championship hopefuls (with Kyle Busch the latest victim this year), Talladega drew an unbalanced amount of focus vs. the other nine tracks — particularly the one following it on the schedule. Emerging unscathed from 500 laps at Martinsville Speedway can be just as daunting as enduring 500 miles at Talladega, but few publicly were paying it much deference before last Sunday.

Until Edwards, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick suffered mediocre performances that left them against the ropes and needing likely wins at Texas or Phoenix International Raceway to stay eligible for the title.

Unlike past editions of the Chase, the points reset before Homestead affixes an expiration date to the lingering disappointment of Martinsville.

But in the constantly shifting sands of these playoffs, there is a counterintuitive element, too: While a poor finish can be erased more quickly, it also can prove more difficult to overcome.

Unless a driver can win to secure an automatic transfer in each round, the odds of weathering a "throwaway" result decrease significantly with each subsequent thinning of the herd. With eight drivers battling for four spots, the math gets much tougher than whittling the field from 16 to 12.

The round that was perceived by many drivers as the most inviting inherently is the toughest from which to advance.

That's reality.

Follow Ryan on Twitter @nateryan