How did Barry Pepper manage to build a career in which his two signature roles would both be made-for-TV sports biographies with numbers for titles (“61” and “3”)? As we count down the hours until ESPN’s premiere of Pepper’s portrayal of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. (and wonder if there’s been a worse American film in the past five years than “Knockaround Guys”), check out Byron Crawford’s interesting correspondence with some of NASCAR’s brighter fans.