MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 11, 2017) – With a brand-new co-host at his side, Dale Earnhardt Jr. used his Dirty Mo Radio podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, to drop a hot take on the new Texas Motor Speedway pavement, his on-again, off-again feud with neighbor Ryan Blaney and a variety of other topics. His new co-host (at least for this week) was his wife, Amy, from the back porch of her sister’s home in the Lone Star State.

The Texas part was a pleasure, according to Dale Jr.

“It was a great finish, our first top-five finish since June of 2016,” he said. “We didn’t have great runs the first part of the season. I was really proud of the guys for sticking it out and staying plugged in. We tend to get down and get upset with each other, or upset about how we run, and I was really proud of them.”

Pit strategy played a role, but make no mistake: the No. 88 Axalta Chevrolet was wicked fast.

“We had great pit strategy thanks to (crew chief) Greg Ives and the guys on the pit box,” he said. “We had a great call for four tires late in Stage 2 and that allowed us to stay out over the break. We ran in the top five the rest of the race, so that was a great call. It was a great morale boost for the team, after such a tough start.

“For a lot of that final stage, we were one of the quicker cars and it was great to run around some of the guys that have been up front the entire season, to see how their cars work and how we measure up against them...Truex, Harvick, Keselowski, the Penske cars have been real good all season. It was a great day for HMS overall with Jimmie winning the race. We were fifth and Chase was ninth.”

If you’ve tuned in at all over the past few weeks, you’ll know that there’s been some friction between Earnhardt Jr. and Ryan Blaney, his friend and occasional brew buddy.

“Another guy who had a great run was our pal Blaney,” he said. “Me and Blaney patched things up in the bus lot this weekend, talked about trying to race races without running into each other so we can get back to drinking beer together. It’s not surprising for me to see him run well, but I do have to remind myself that he’s in a Wood Brothers car, because that’s pretty incredible to have that team and that car relevant again. It’s great for NASCAR.”

On the Texas repave, Earnhardt started out a bit cool toward the new surface, but found that as the weekend wore on, he liked it better and better.

“This is a brand-new configuration in Turns 1 and 2,” he said. “It was kind of awkward at first. The entrance and transition into Turn 1 was completely different, but halfway through the race it really seemed to come together and make sense to me as a driver going around the track. I had a lot of fun with the track. It was really unusual and awkward during the race, and we kept doing it wrong.

“I did it wrong a lot until the race started and got into a rhythm. That leads me to another thing. The track did an amazing job working on the surface and the groove and getting it to widen out. Not only to give us a track we could actually use, because we didn’t come in early Thursday and run all day like we typically do at the repaves. Saturday, I was like, ‘man, I wish we had come in here Thursday and ran and ran and ran, got some rubber down.’ But they took this Tire Monster and ran around the track on Saturday and ran in a second groove. I thought to myself, ‘this ain’t going to work.’ I told everyone Sunday morning that this was going to be a single-groove track, but it wasn’t. I got up there in the middle of the race and found some speed and was able to get around some guys and not be held up so bad by lapped cars.

“At the start of the race, you wouldn’t dare start on the outside, much less want to be up there starting second, fourth, sixth or eighth. By halfway through the race, you saw the leaders start to take the outside groove, and it was awesome to be in the outside groove so good job by Eddie (Gossage) and all the team for working so hard to get that track ready to go. They did an awesome job.”

For all this and more, tune into The Dale Jr. Download or download it from iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher or any of the other major podcast outlets.