The actor was one of the drivers competing in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, on Friday. Midway through the race, however, Muniz crashed his truck during a collision with fellow racer Tyler Reif. Fortunately, both men walked away from the wreck.
“I actually thought we were running pretty good for us here. I felt pretty quick,” Muniz told reporters afterward. “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.”
He added: “I think [Reif] just 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. And 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. And next thing I know, I’m destroying a truck.”
When one reporter commented on the “irony” of the crash occurring on the same day as the Life’s Still Unfair premiere, Muniz said, “Hopefully it got TV time, you know what I mean? Hopefully people are going to watch the Malcolm in the Middle reboot right after this race!”
Muniz ended up completing 115 laps of the race — which, he observed, was his best progress at Bristol yet. “The fact that we were at, what, lap 100-something, and we were still in the hunt, like we could have still gotten back on the lead lap — I felt pretty good,” he said. “It feels good when you’re like, ‘Oh, I feel competitive, and we’re battling, and I’m pushing people out of the way, and we’re racing.’ That’s what I need, you know what I mean?”
Not so good was his wrecked Ford F-150, which bore advertisements for Life’s Still Unfair. “My face!” Muniz joked, referring to the smashed-up marketing.
Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair, Now Streaming, Hulu & Disney+
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