Frankie Muniz Details His Return to NASCAR After Believing He’d Raced for the Last Time (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Frankie Muniz will be back for his second full- time season with Team Reaume in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2026, driving a Ford F-150

• In addition, the actor will face a new challenge in sports car racing as an appointed driver for TechSport Racing, driving a Ford Mustang GT4

• Later this year, he’ll also star in the four-episode revival series, Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair

Frankie Muniz is again taking to the track in 2026 — this time as a driver in two different motorsports series.

Muniz, 40, will be back for his second full- time season with Team Reaume in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving a Ford F-150. In addition, the actor will face a new challenge in sports car racing as an appointed driver for TechSport Racing, driving a Ford Mustang GT4 in the SRO-sanctioned GT4 America season.

The Malcolm in the Middle alumnus began racing in 2004 and started his professional career in 2006, joining Reaume as a full-time driver of the No. 33 F-150 in the 2025 season of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. His new role at TechSport Racing will see him race alongside co-driver Tyler Stone.

Speaking to PEOPLE in an exclusive interview, Muniz acknowledged that his schedule in the new year — which will include 25 races in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, seven races with SRO America, and the debut of the four-episode revival series, Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair — will be “pretty intense.”

But the actor has no plans on letting off the pedal.

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“If I’m being 100% honest, I really thought that last year was gonna be my final year racing,” Muniz tells PEOPLE. “Just because of the amount of time and focus and everything that goes into being a driver at the top level. So when I did my last race in Phoenix a month ago, I had this thought like, ‘Well, this could be the last race I ever do as a NASCAR driver.’ “

He continues: “And it was really in that moment that I was like, ‘No way. I’m not done with this. The story is not done. I haven’t accomplished the goals that I want to accomplish in it.’ “

“There’s still a lot of unfinished business,” he adds.

Speaking to PEOPLE on his 40th birthday, the actor acknowledges racing is “not a young man’s sport,” adding, “I consider myself extremely fortunate and lucky … I’m one of maybe 100 people on the entire planet that have a racing license to race NASCAR. So I know I’ve gotta take advantage of that opportunity.”

While Muniz has a successful year, securing a 10th-place finish in his fifth career NASCAR truck series start at Daytona in February, he adds that he still isn’t satisfied.

“There’s so much that happens in racing that’s out of your control and we had a lot of things happen this year that were out of our control, where it felt like it was the universe telling me like, ‘Maybe it’s not for you,'” he says. “The highs of racing are so high, but the lows of racing are really low so I went through a weird period emotionally throughout the season.”

One of the lows to which Muniz alluded was an August 2025 fall at his home (which took place as he was changing the batteries of a Ring camera) which led to a wrist fracture and caused him to take a seven-week break from racing as he recovered.

“The phrase ‘FML’ (Frankie Muniz’s Life) takes on new meaning with moments like these,” Muniz wrote on X at the time. “I’m disappointed to share that I won’t be racing at Darlington this weekend or for the next few weeks due to a distal radius fracture.” He made his return to racing in October, at Talladega.

Having worked as an actor since the age of eight, Muniz says he’s still sorting out what success means in the world of racing.

“So much that I’ve done in my life — since I was eight years old, even as an actor — like I kind of did things and fell into it and found success without really trying,” he says, adding: “This is the first thing like I feel like, ‘Whoa. This is way harder than I ever imagined it could possibly be.’ But that motivates me way more right to keep fighting for it.”

Muniz adds that he’s hopeful to add more top 10 and top 15 finishes to his racing resume, saying: “When I’m done with it, I wanna look back and go, ‘Okay, I gave it 100% and gave it a real honest try and I’m happy with what I did.'”

“I don’t know exactly what that level of success looks like … I think I’ll know it when I accomplish it,” he says.

Read the original article on People