Frankie Muniz Returns to Daytona with Mixed Emotions

“This is so much fun!” Frankie Muniz said as he rowed through the gears on the Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, which races in the Mustang Challenge series. The car is pale yellow, a tribute color to honor the first Mustang to win at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course back in 1967, driven by Terlingua Racing Team’s Jerry Titus. It’s owned by Ford CEO Jim Farley, a skilled amateur who races in the series.

On this day, though, the Malcolm in the Middle TV star, who will be racing full-time this year in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series, is giving rides in Farley’s car to media members on a short road course inside the Charlotte Motor Speedway as part of the Ford Performance 2025 preview. Muniz, 39, is fast and smooth, deftly catching the rear end of the Mustang as it slides out a bit in a couple of corners.

This is nothing new for Muniz, who caught the racing bug after participating in the now-defunct Toyota Pro Celebrity race that used to be part of the Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend and sent several celebs on the path to motorsports. That was in 2004, and two years later Muniz went all in, pushing pause on his acting career to race.

He competed in the Formula BMW USA Championship in 2006 before moving up to race in the ChampCar Atlantic Championship from 2007 to 2009.

In 2009, Muniz was fourth in the points with two races to go before a season-ending crash broke his back and injured his hands and ribs, which required multiple surgeries. He talked about the lingering effects of the crash eight years later, on the 2017 season premiere of Dancing with the Stars, where he and partner Witney Carson eventually finished third. “I’m 31 but feel like I have the creaky old body of a 71-year-old,” he said then.

(As the current owner of a creaky old 71-year-old body, I sympathize.)

Muniz took a 14-year break from racing after that crash, but he returned for the 2023 season to participate in the ARCA series, where he raced in all 20 events and ended up fourth in points. And last year he raced part-time in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series and Xfinity Series. He’s always been in Fords, capitalizing on a long relationship with the manufacturer.

This racing season is different for Muniz, though, because he has signed for the full season in the Craftsman Truck Series, in which he will drive the number 33 Reaume Brothers Racing team Ford F-150. The team has full Ford factory status, which gives Muniz the benefit of assets such as the use of a wind tunnel and simulators.

Muniz’s season will (hopefully) start today, with the Fresh from Florida 250 at Daytona International Speedway. The race airs on Fox FS1 at 7:30 p.m. Qualifying is at 3 p.m., also on FS1: Muniz needs to qualify on speed to be one of the 36 trucks of the 38 entered to make the field.

“This is the best situation I’ve ever been in for racing,” Muniz said. “Ford has been a great partner.”

It’s easy to see why Ford is interested in him: As a story in Forbes this week about Muniz pointed out: “With 1.3 million Instagram followers alone—more than double of Cup Series Most Popular Driver Chase Elliott’s 493,000—he immediately jumped to the top in terms of being one of the sport’s most popular drivers.”

This is not to say Muniz has given up acting. He stars in a new movie, a thriller named Renner, in which Muniz’s character, a computer pro, invents an A.I. life coach to help him find a companion, but soon he realizes he inadvertently typed his manipulative mother’s personality into the code.

He’ll also star in the just-announced revival of the Malcolm in the Middle series, which he’s doing for Disney+ with the original cast, including Bryan Cranston and Jane Kaczmarek, who play his parents.

“Everybody will be back except for the actor who played my little brother, Dewey,” Muniz said. (That would be Erik Per Sullivan, who hasn’t acted since 2010.) The four-episode series will air later this year.

Muniz and the Malcolm cast starred in 151 episodes that aired on Fox from 2000 to 2006. It’s a little surprising that Cranston, who has had an active career including his Emmy-winning role as Walter White in AMC’s Breaking Bad, would be interested in returning to Malcolm. “Actually, it was his idea,” Muniz said. He and Cranston first talked about the reprise 10 years ago.

So it will be a busy season for Muniz, but he insists that his racing career comes first. There are 25 NASCAR Truck races, beginning with Daytona and ending at Phoenix Raceway on October 31.

Coming back to Daytona calls up mixed emotions for Muniz. In 2001, he was the celebrity pace car driver for the Daytona 500, where he met Dale Earnhardt. Muniz said this in a 2023 radio interview: “So Dale Earnhardt, he came up to me at the driver’s meeting, and he told me, ‘I just have to say, I’m a huge fan, your show has brought me and my daughter so much closer.’”

Muniz spent the day watching the Daytona 500 in Kenny Schrader’s pit, wearing an M&M’s jacket that Earnhardt had signed. You’ll likely recall that Earnhardt and Schrader were in a last-lap crash, and few who saw it will forget the moment when Schrader went to his friend Earnhardt’s car to check on him, then frantically signaled to rescue workers to hurry.

Muniz was in his hotel room when Earnhardt’s death was announced an hour after the crash. “I had never cried that hard in my life,” Muniz said.

So tonight, Muniz will be back at Daytona, for the first time in his career driving a factory-backed entry with plans to run an entire season. “It’s where I want to be,” he says. “It’s been my dream.”