Frankie Muniz may have envisioned a very different weekend for himself, especially now that he’s back in the Hollywood spotlight once again. The “Malcolm in the Middle” revival just premiered, and it should have been riding high.
Instead, just a few hours later, he ended up involved in a reckless accident that no one saw coming: a high-powered crash at a NASCAR race that took him out of contention and right back in the news for all the wrong reasons.
Frankie Muniz crashes in NASCAR: What happened?
These days, 40-year-old Frankie Muniz is living his racing dream full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Per Entertainment Weekly, the Hollywood actor was at Bristol Motor Speedway, behind the wheel of a Ford F-150 wrapped in Malcolm in the Middle graphics, which seems like a pretty good way to celebrate the return of television.
Then, midway through the race, things got messy. Muniz feuded with Tyler Reeve and Timmy Hill.
This was his night. His truck was hit, his race was over, and he had a DNF next to his name.But the good news is that Muniz came out without any injuries.“I actually thought we were going pretty well. It felt pretty fast,” Moniz told Fox Sports after the race. He thought he was in a strong position, the “lucky dog” as they say, when things fell apart with about 10 laps remaining on the stage.
The drama did not stop with the accident. After the race, Reeve and Muniz got into a heated argument. Muniz stood his ground, clearly upset by the way things had turned out.According to Muniz, Reeve became impatient and hit him while trying to pass the ball. From there, the two trucks crashed into the wall, and Hill was arrested as well, unfortunately.“I guess [Reif] Maybe he ran out of patience. I don’t know… I’m fighting. I belong on this racetrack as much as he does, just as much as the leaders.
And I won’t back down from that. I didn’t watch a replay, but based on how I felt, I went to the middle of the track. I didn’t track all the way to show that I would go back to the bottom. “The next thing I know, I’m destroying a truck,” Muniz said.“He was screaming at me out there that I was a lapper, like I shouldn’t be racing. I’m in lucky dog mode. I’m fighting. I belong on this racetrack as much as he belongs to it, just like the leaders do,” he added.He insisted he deserved to be there to compete, saying: “I’m not going to back down from that. I didn’t watch the replay, but based on how I felt, I went to the middle of the track. I didn’t track all the way to show I was going to get back to the bottom.”When a reporter pointed out how serious it was that the Malcolm-themed truck crashed on the same day the show returned, Muniz didn’t miss a beat. “I hope there’s time to watch TV, you know what I mean?” He laughed, hoping people would listen to the rerun after all the racing drama.
More about Frankie Muniz and “Malcolm in the Middle”
Frankie Muniz is known primarily as Hollywood’s Malcolm, the child genius from that messy family sitcom that ran from 2000 to 2006. The show took off, handed out awards, and certainly left its mark on TV comedy. But Muniz moved away from Hollywood after a while. Instead, racing became his world, and he spent years pushing himself on the track. He wasn’t looking for fame, he just wanted to win. In fact, according to EW, Muniz insists that racing is the real deal for him.
He’s dealt with a lot of setbacks: injuries, bad races, all of that. Yet he keeps coming back for the love of speed.As for “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair,” a revival of the former show, it dropped just days before the collapse. The series begins with Malcolm as an adult now, trying to do family life his way. But of course, old family chaos brings him back to his parents’ 40th anniversary. Most of the original cast is back: Bryan Cranston, Gene Kaczmarek, and the entire crew, recreating that honest and unpredictable dynamic.“Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” is available on Hulu and Disney+.
