Dale Jr. Download: Earnhardt applauds Blaney’s achievement

RELATED: Blaney celebrates in style | Schedule for Michigan, Gateway Ryan Blaney's breakthrough onto the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series' list of race winners prompted a positive reaction from many in the Pocono Raceway grandstands. Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s response to his fellow competitor and close friend's first win was much the same, but included helpful tips in planning the victory celebration. Earnhardt detailed his connection to Blaney and his own eventful Pocono weekend in Tuesday's edition of the "Dale Jr. Download" on his Dirty Mo Radio network. Earnhardt said Blaney texted him for advice on how best to toast Sunday's win. Earnhardt told Blaney just to open his own doors to invite close friends, a group that included Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Danica Patrick and members of his Wood Brothers Racing team. That party went well into Monday morning's wee hours, but Earnhardt said there was plenty of cause for celebration. "He's a good guy, easy to like, has a great story, driving with the Wood Brothers," Earnhardt said. "I think any time the Wood Brothers win, that's going to be a popular win, but you tie Ryan Blaney into that, that kind of makes him a little bit of a hero for a lot of folks that the new fan and the old-school core fan can kind of grasp onto that." MORE: Wood Brothers Racing through the years Earnhardt said he had taken notice of Blaney early on, mentioning a strong seventh-place result in his NASCAR XFINITY Series debut (Richmond, 2012) as a launching pad to becoming a winner in all three NASCAR national series. Blaney's talent was a known quantity, Earnhardt said, but his deft handling of off-track obligations has set him apart. "Another thing I like about Ryan, and we talked about this last week on the podcast, is his ability to interact with the fans on social media, his willingness to go represent and promote the sport outside of the NASCAR bubble even, on TV shows and so forth," Earnhardt said. "You have to have guys like that. That's not the most important part of the job. The fact that he's talented and good inside the car is great -- that's the most important part. But he goes out of his way, really, to market the sport and himself." And Earnhardt picked up on what's become a recurring theme: the 23-year-old's victory as part of the infusion of young drivers into the mix. "That's just the cycle of youth coming into the sport," Earnhardt said. "This is a new generation of drivers. It's their time. It's the beginning of their careers. It's just like when we saw Jeff Gordon come into the sport and win his first race or Jeff Burton, those kind of guys. You're seeing some new talent, new guys coming in to stake their claim." Among other topics from Earnhardt's podcast: • Earnhardt left Pocono happy for his friend, but lamenting his own 38th-place finish, the result of his second engine failure and missed shift of the weekend. His Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet crew assured him post-race that nothing was different with the transmission housing, the shifter handle or the gear-shift pattern. "That really leaves me with no answers on why this keeps happening. It's really embarrassing because racing's a team sport, you don't want to be that guy. You don't want to go out there and work hard all day and be the guy that costs everybody the game, right? If you're in a team sport, there's days where you're going to be that guy, so you've got to be able to deal with it but it's really not a lot of fun. "I just told the team that it was on me, we'll work hard to figure out what we can do to make sure this doesn't happen when we come back (to Pocono on July 30)." • Earnhardt also answered a fan's question during the mailbag segment on whether car owner Rick Hendrick would change the team's car number from No. 88 back to No. 25 after the driver's retirement at the end of the season. "I would be fine with whatever Rick wanted," Earnhardt said. "If he wants to bring the 25 back, but I think he'll keep the 88 because the 88 has some value to the partner, a lot of value to the Nationwide partner, and I think that has value also for HMS."