![Ryan Blaney]()
Perks of having Dale Jr. as a neighbor.
Of course we've heard all about some of the wild parties that
Dale Earnhardt Jr. used to have back in the day, back when he would
have so much beer delivered to his house that distributors thought he was selling it.
And early in his NASCAR Cup Series career, defending champion
Ryan Blaney lived on Junior's property - so he admits that he would often just take his four-wheeler through the woods over to Dale's and get "wrecked."
“We would get done with these races on Sunday night, get home at 10 or 10:30.
I would go drive a four-wheeler through the woods to Dale’s house and get absolutely wrecked for like six hours, and then one-eye a four wheeler through the woods back to my place.
That was like the funnest years of my life, Dale is so much fun.”
I can only imagine the stories that he has from those times.
We recently sat down with Blaney and asked him if he had any stories of partying with Dale that he could share, and one that stood out to him was a surprise that Junior had for him after his first ever Cup Series win.
Blaney got his first win back at Pocono in 2017, back when Dale Jr. was still driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Junior's race ended early when he blew an engine only 58-laps into the 160-lap race, so he had already left the track when Blaney got to victory lane.
But when Blaney got back home, Junior was waiting for him:
"We won, and I got back, and it's your first win, you're gonna celebrate, a lot. And he already had everything ready at my house. He was waiting outside of my house with his buddies, stocked everything, brought like 8 coolers over there, was ready to go.
I was like, 'Man, that's nice of that guy.' He had a bad day, obviously didn't run like he wanted to, ended early, but it just shows the kind of guy he is. He's going to make sure that his buddy is ready to go for his first one, because he's been to his first one before.
Tons of fun. Dale's such a good guy, and I had a lot of fun over there."
That Junior, always ready to party - even if it's to help somebody else celebrate.
https://twitter.com/BubbaWallace/status/874170512091619328
You can check out our full interview with Blaney here:
https://youtu.be/7UipFFX_Vq4?si=DzRSIPCZ7gV4W97w
