Andrew Nelles / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Frankie Muniz earned the right to pick his next adventure after making bank as a child star who played the title character in Malcolm in the Middle, and he decided to pivot to a career in auto racing. He’s currently competing in the NASCAR Truck Series, and he’ll be honoring his roots with the paint scheme that will be plastered on the vehicle he’ll be driving at Bristol Motor Speedway this week.
There are sadly far too many tales concerning actors who found themselves thrust into the spotlight from a young age and ended up living a troubled life after getting chewed up and spit out by Hollywood. However, there are plenty of child stars who managed to emerge relatively unscathed.
That includes Frankie Muniz, who could probably be best described as a “teen star” when you consider he was 14 years old when the first episode of Malcolm in the Middle debuted at the start of 2000.
He landed an Emmy nomination for his performance as the titular character over the course of a seven-season run that wrapped up in 2006, and based on his legendary tweet response to a troll who criticized his acting chops in 2010, he was sitting on $40 million before he turned 20.
@iHeartMtnDEW Yeah, but being retired with $40,000,000.00 at 19 has not been awful. Good luck moving out of your moms house before youre 35.
— Frankie Muniz (@frankiemuniz) September 16, 2010
Muniz could have faded into the sunset and coasted off those earnings for the rest of his life, but he decided to turn his attention to auto racing. He’s still going strong on that front, and things have come full circle ahead of his next race.
Frankie Muniz will be racing at Bristol Motor Speedway in a truck with a Malcolm in the Middle paint scheme
Muniz has popped up in a handful of projects since Malcolm in the Middle came to an end, and in 2024, we learned he’d signed up for the four-part reboot subtitled Life’s Still Unfair.
The miniseries will also see the bulk of the original cast returning with the notable exception of Erik Per Sullivan, who declined to step back into the shoes of Dewey to focus on his studies at Harvard despite being offered “buckets of money” to reprise the role that was ultimately recast.
It will be dropping in its entirety on Disney+ on Friday, April 10th, which just so happens to be the same day Muniz will be taking part in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
His No. 33 Ford F-150 has cycled through a number of different sponsors over the past few years, and on Tuesday, Muniz revealed an objectively fantastic exercise in corporate synergy by providing us with our first look at the Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair paint scheme he’ll be debuting in Tennessee.
🚨 THIS IS NOT A DRILL 🚨
On Friday, April 10th, the Malcolm in the Middle family explodes back onto @Hulu on Disney+ with Life’s Still Unfair… and the exact same day, I’m strapping in and driving the Malcolm in the Middle truck at Bristol Motor Speedway!
My childhood. My… pic.twitter.com/MG8uFrrIix
— Frankie Muniz (@frankiemuniz) April 7, 2026
Muniz made his Truck Series debut in 2024 (the reboot was filmed around his racing schedule) and is still in search of his first victory.
His 10th-place finish at Daytona last February was his best one to date (and the only time he ended up in the Top 10), and he’ll be sitting in 22nd place in the standings heading into his sixth race of the current season.