After a surprise top-10 finish in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway, Frankie Muniz was feeling on top of the world. The longtime actor, who is a budding race car driver, got his Rookie of the Year campaign off on the right foot.
However, things had begun to spiral out of control in the 11 races after Daytona. Mistakes by Muniz on the track coupled with a plethora of mechanical failures on his No. 33 Reaume Brothers Racing Ford F-150 led to the driver piling up six DNFs over that 11-race stretch, and he entered Saturday’s DQS Solutions and Staffing 250 at Michigan International Speedway desperately needing a turnaround.
He got it in the form of a 14th-place finish, but had the 39-year-old not made a crucial mistake on a late-race restart, he knows he could have easily walked out of the Irish Hills with his second top-10 finish of the season, and perhaps more.
“I mean, look, I can’t be mad at a 14th-place finish, especially after how our last eight [races] have gone. But we were fast enough to finish in the top 10 in that race, 100 percent. I’ve never made this mistake, and I hate to admit it, but I had it in third gear, I didn’t have it in the right gear [on the restart],” Muniz admitted in an interview on pit road following the race. “I was so excited to be on the second row, thinking like, ‘Yo, if I just keep my foot in this, we can get a top-five,’ and I’m just — so mad at myself.”
While he was made at himself for not capitalizing on the massive opportunity in front of him, Muniz was proud of his team, and himself for remaining persistent through an incredible stretch of bad luck, and in the end, the 14th-place result helped the driver shelve any potential doubts within his own head as to whether he can be a contender in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
“I’m thrilled for the team, thrilled for me just to have a good run. I mean, I was racing with [Ty Majeski], I was racing with [Ben Rhodes], I was racing with really good trucks the whole race. You know, side-by-side. It’s what I needed just for my confidence to prove to myself that I can race in this series,” Muniz explained. “You know, we should have had a top-10 there. I’ll take the 14th, but I easily could have had a top-10 there if I didn’t make a mistake. But thrilled for the team, thrilled for Morgan & Morgan. It feels good. The last couple of weeks, I was like, ‘Why am I even trying?’ you know what I mean? And this makes me feel, oh no, keep going.”
With the solid run at the 2-mile Michigan International Speedway, Muniz heads into the offweek with confidence. Now, the driver, who sits 25th in the championship standings, will look to have back-to-back top-15 finishes for the first time in his rookie season as the series will travel to Pocono Raceway on Friday, June 20.
