Frankie Muniz suffered a tough crash in a recent NASCAR outing, coming only hours after the Friday (April 11) debut of the Malcolm in the Middle reboot.
Muniz first entered the world of motorsport with a professional racing debut in 2006, stepping away from acting for a period. He later committed to a full-time NASCAR season in 2025.
Even with his return to television for the new Malcolm in the Middle project, Muniz has kept his focus on competing in the US racing circuit. During the event at Bristol Motor Speedway, however, his night ended early after an on-track incident.
Driving his F-150 truck, Muniz was involved in a collision with Truck Series drivers Tyler Reif and Timmy Hill, leaving him unable to finish the race.
Although the truck took a hit, Muniz was not injured.
Frankie Muniz on his view of what happened in the crash between him and Tyler Reif. @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/R1pV3FENs3
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) April 11, 2026
“I actually thought we were running pretty good. I felt pretty quick,” he told Bob Pockrass from Fox News after the race. “We were in the lucky dog position, so I was just trying to do some good lap times. I think there was like 10 to go on the stage.”
Muniz continued: “I think [Reif] maybe got impatient, I don’t know. He was yelling at me in there, saying I’m a lapper, like I shouldn’t be racing. I’m in the lucky dog position. I’m fighting. I belong on that racetrack just as much as he does, just as much as the leaders do.
“I’m not going to back down on that. I haven’t seen a replay, but based on what I felt, I went to the middle of the track. I didn’t track all the way out to show that I was going to go back to the bottom.”
On the TV front, Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair arrived on Disney+ last week and opened with a 78 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The four-episode run brings Malcolm and his brothers back together as adults, reuniting for a celebration of Hal and Lois’ 40th wedding anniversary.
Jane Kaczmarek, Bryan Cranston, and Muniz reprise their roles in the reboot. One notable absence is Erik Per Sullivan, who originally played Dewey.
According to Kaczmarek, Sullivan was encouraged to return with a major financial offer, which she discussed in an interview with The Guardian.
“They offered him buckets of money to come back, and he just said: ‘No thank you,'” the actor claimed.