BROWNSBURG, Ind. — One of the more interesting stories of the ARCA Menards Series season has been actor-turned-racer Frankie Muniz's surprising rookie season.
The star of "Malcolm in the Middle" has boasted eight top-10 finishes in the first 11 races of the ARCA season. He scored his first career top-5 finish last weekend at Michigan.
Now, the 37-year-old driver for Rette Jones Racing is sitting second in the points championship, 82 points behind leader Jesse Love. Another top-5 finish could push him closer to the top.
While his points deficit might seem insurmountable, especially with third place Andres Perez De Lara only four points behind him, Muniz's first full season in stock cars should be considered a success.
Muniz began his racing career in 2004 when he participated in the Toyota Pro Celebrity Race that used to be held during the Long Beach Grand Prix weekend. However, his love of racing started at an early age.
In 2001, he was invited to that year's Daytona 500 as the pace car driver. He was one of the last people to talk to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt before his fatal crash on the last lap.
In 2006, Muniz ran the Formula BMW USA championship as his first professional racing gig before moving up to the ChampCar Atlantic Series for 2007.
Muniz ran three seasons in Atlantics with a best championship finish of ninth in the 2009 season. That same year, he scored his best Atlantics finish at the Utah Motorsports Campus, where he finished fourth. He never finished outside the top 10 in 2009.
After his 2009 Atlantics season was cut short due to a wrist injury, Muniz took a hiatus from racing, only appearing in the 2011 Toyota Pro Celebrity Race. The hiatus ended in 2021 when he began chasing his aspirations of racing in NASCAR.
Muniz made his stock car debut in 2021 at Kern County Raceway Park in California, driving in the SRL Pro Late Model Series.
During his efforts to make it into NASCAR, Muniz was frequently hindered by sponsorship troubles. He tested an ARCA car at Daytona in 2022, but funding issues kept him sidelined. After acquiring sponsorship from Hairclub earlier this year, Muniz announced he would compete the full ARCA season with Rette Jones Racing.
On Friday, Muniz will compete at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park for the first time in his career as he continues his dream of making it into the NASCAR Cup Series one day. While he'd need Jesse Love to have a bad race, another top-5 finish should continue to cement Muniz as a title favorite for years to come.
