Substack exclusive: Frankie Muniz returns to 'Malcolm in the Middle' in midst of NASCAR career

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When “Malcolm in the Middle” last aired in 2006, lead actor Frankie Muniz was 20 years old, still very much in the hustle and bustle of Hollywood.

Twenty years later, the show is back with a four-episode reunion on Hulu and Disney+ — as evidenced by the sky-blue vinyl wrap donning the No. 33 Team Reaume Ford F-150 that Muniz will drive in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

MORE: Truck Series standings | Bristol schedule

Muniz‘s face is prominently featured on the rear corners of the race truck he‘ll drive at 130 mph for 250 laps Friday night, surrounded by those of Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek and his familiar castmates that made the show a 2000s staple. But Muniz isn‘t a kid actor anymore. He‘s a grown man with a family, pouring his soul into being a full-time race-car driver in NASCAR‘s national levels. It just so happens he‘s now reliving part of his childhood back in the public eye of the mainstream.

“I never thought I‘d experience it again,” Muniz told NASCAR.com Friday morning at Bristol. “But it‘s been really awesome. Obviously, I‘m also driving today in the ‘Malcolm in the Middle‘ Ford F-150, which I don‘t know that that‘s ever happened before — like a driver promoting their TV show that‘s coming out the same day. But I‘m super-excited for both worlds colliding, and hopefully people love it.”

These days, Muniz is a full-time racer in the midst of his fourth full-time season in stock cars, a journey that has been mixed with glorious highs and heart-wrenching lows. Toss in filming a four-episode reunion in Vancouver while balancing racing, fatherhood, marriage … it all began to take its toll on Muniz.

“I always feel bad — the word‘s not complaining, but explaining how just crazy busy I am because everyone‘s busy,” Muniz said. “Life is busy in general. But being an actor, filming a show, promoting a show, that‘s a full-time gig that most actors would be like, ‘Oh, I need a six-month vacation in Hawai‘i.‘ Because it‘s just a lot. It‘s really draining.

“But then mix in the fact that I‘ve got to be prepared and ready to compete almost every single week in the Truck Series and traveling all over. … Since Feb. 1, I‘ve only been home four days. I‘ve already been on, I think, 80 flights this year. It‘s been a lot. Sure, people are gonna go ‘first-world problems.‘ I‘m exhausted, I‘m not gonna lie.”

Frankie Muniz and son, Mauz, before a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race.

What keeps him going is what pushed him back into racing in the first place: serving as an inspiration to his 5-year-old son, Mauz.

Muniz knows the great fortune he‘s had to be so many things — a Hollywood star; a drummer in indie-rock band Kingsfoil; a real-life, full-fledged race-car driver. But when he held his son in his arms for the first time in 2021, he couldn‘t help but wonder: “Who is he gonna grow up thinking that I am?”

Five years later, Muniz is back in the Hollywood limelight, rattling through press and premieres that featured an early-week gamut of appearances in New York City, where his face was featured on a 200-foot billboard in Times Square.

“I wanted him to understand work ethic and sacrifice and all those things, right?” Muniz said. “And I wanted him to understand why we had the things that we had, not just think that it‘s normal. And so I decided to go racing to be an inspiration to him. In that same token, it has completely taken me away from him, realistically. So even that, I‘m trying to balance in a sense.”

Muniz‘s stay in the Craftsman Truck Series — the first rung in the three-level ladder of NASCAR‘s national series — is no publicity stunt. Muniz first started racing in 2004, during the original stint of “Malcolm in the Middle” filming, with an appearance in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in Long Beach. That jump-started a career that led him into open-wheel racing before a 2009 crash at Mid-Ohio sidelined him with a broken back and badly injured left thumb.

MORE: Frankie Muniz‘s journey to stock-car racing

A full season of racing in the ARCA Menards Series in 2023 with one top five and 11 top 10s led to part-time opportunities in trucks and the NASCAR O‘Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2024 before going full-time truck racing in 2025 with Team Reaume.

In 30 truck starts, Muniz has one top 10 (10th, Michigan 2025) with an average finish of 25.6. Team Reaume is not a powerhouse team in the series the way Toyota‘s Tricon Garage or Ford‘s ThorSport Racing is. Targets are always kept in check — “if we can consistently be in the top 20, that‘s a good goal” — and Muniz loves the challenge, no matter the struggles that come with it.

“It is so hard,” Muniz said. “The competition I think in the Truck Series is insane this year. ARCA, I dove in after not racing for 12, 13 years. I was an open-wheel guy and then wanted to go stock-car racing. I jumped into ARCA (and) immediately had success, and it felt really, really good. So obviously, made the jump up to the Truck Series and it‘s a whole different level, right?

“When you look at the entry list even this weekend at Bristol, like, how am I even out there? Like, there‘s I think seven Cup drivers (in the field). Everybody in the Truck Series is really, really good. At first I was playing catch-up for the lack of experience. Now, I have a lot of experience, but it‘s trying to figure out what works for me, what works for the team.”

There are rejuvenating highs in racing, though. Muniz ventured back into sports-car racing on March 27, driving for Ford in the Pirelli GT4 America Amateur class at Sonoma Raceway. In his first appearance at the famed California road course, Muniz and co-driver Tyler Stone walked away with a second-place podium class finish, a tangible result for his unrelenting efforts.

The objective nature of sports is that results do that talking — not critics.

“It‘s not subjective, right?” Muniz said. “You know, the ‘Malcolm‘ show came out today. I‘m reading reviews. Half of them think it‘s the greatest show ever, and half of them think we shouldn‘t have done it. But it‘s subjective. Where in racing, we were on the podium. It‘s because we beat everybody. …

“That‘s why I like racing, right? The highs and lows and the feelings and the emotion. And a lot of is because you just care a lot, right? If I didn‘t care what, like, ‘yeah, whatever, I had a bad day.‘ No. Like I want — for the team, for me — to do well. But I don‘t expect it to be handed to me. So I know there‘s a lot of work that goes into it, and I‘m trying to do it.”

So 20 years later, long after Muniz had originally hung up the moniker of Malcolm, he‘s back. He might even be put in the middle three-wide Friday night on the high banks of Bristol. And when the race wraps up, folks can go from watching him race on FS1 to watching him reprise his role as Malcolm on “Malcolm in the Middle” with four new episodes on Hulu and Disney+.

But no matter the oversized billboards or the fun promos you get to see him star in, Muniz is all in on racing.

“I just want everyone to know that I take this so seriously,” Muniz said. “I‘m not here as a fluke or just to have fun. I‘m here because I want to compete. I‘m here to hopefully eventually get to where I‘m competing for top 10s, top fives, maybe wins. I know I‘ve got a long way to go, but I‘m not going anywhere. I‘m gonna keep fighting for it.”