Ryan Blaney and Dale Earnhardt Jr. sound like double trouble.
And for a while, I think that’s exactly what they were.
Blaney is of course the reigning 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion, and he’s been doing rounds of press to talk about his massively successful season, which included an appearance on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast.
Co-hosts Taylor Lewan and Will Compton told Blaney about how the bus they record on is a #8 bus, which was previously the number of Dale Jr.’s Budweiser car for a time back in the day.
They explained that the bus went to tailgates at NASCAR races all over the country, and of course, they wanted to know a little bit about Blaney’s personal relationship with Jr., who was also previously a guest on their podcast.
Blaney actually lived on Dale’s property for three years back when he first started racing in the Cup series, and he recalled driving through the woods on a four-wheeler to Dale’s western town “Whisky River,” and getting “wrecked” there on Sunday evenings after the got home from whichever track they were at that weekend:
“I love Dale. I lived on Dale’s property for like three years. I lived right across the woods from there, the Whisky River town… funnest times of my life.
I was a rookie in the Cup series, I’m 21-years old living by myself in the house I’m renting for the first time, and Dales’ 1,000 yards through the woods. Dale was still racing at the time.”
And if it sounds like a recipe for some really fun times, that’s because it was…
“So 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 what they got into, though it sounds like they might not exactly remember every detail of those wild nights.
Lewan and Compton were obviously amused by the tale, and of course asked the obvious question, which is whether or not Blaney ever got lost on the way back.
He says that he did get lost the first time he did the four-wheeler trek, noting that “everything looks the same” in the woods at night, especially when you’re seeing “eight of everything”:
“I think the first time I did it, I got lost. Everything looks the same, its the woods, and it’s dark and I’m seeing eight of everything. It was rough.”
Fair enough… luckily, it sounds like he never got hurt or was ever really too far gone to where he couldn’t actually get back to his house.
And of course, a lot has changed for Jr. since those days, as he’s now the father of two young girls and doesn’t party like he used to, Blaney says:
“Yeah it’s slowed down a little bit, you know.
They also got a couple kids now, so it’s slowing down, but there was some wild stuff that happened in the town that I can’t say.”
To have been a fly on the wall for some of the good old days, so to speak, though…
In case you’ve never heard of or seen Whisky River before, do yourself a favor and check out the video below.
It was inspired by country legend Willie Nelson, who has a famously similar Western town out on his ranch in Luck, Texas:
You can watch the whole podcast episode below.
