It’s the 2000s, a nice Sunday evening, and the family’s all cozied up on the sofa, laughing along to Malcolm in the Middle. Imagine if someone told you back then that the mischievous, lovable Malcolm would grow up to chase checkered flags in NASCAR. Sounds wild, right? That turned into reality when Frankie Muniz, the kid who brought Malcolm to life, caught the racing bug.

After dipping his toes in the ARCA Series, he decided to make the enormous leap and move up to the Craftsman Truck Series for 2025. And let’s just say, it hasn’t been a happy ride for the Reaume Brothers Racing driver. With a streak of DNFs, and unable to perform, he was sulking in his thoughts, questioning himself. “If I’m being 100% honest… Mentally/emotionally, I may be at a new low. Just wanted to say it out loud,” Muniz shared via X. But just when everything looked to be going sideways, he found a breakthrough.

Frankie Muniz rolled across the finish line in 14th at the DQS Solutions & Staffing 250 at Michigan International Speedway, and the emotion was raw. “I mean, look, I can’t be mad at a 14th place finish, especially after how our last 8 have gone, but we were fast enough to finish top ten in that race a hundred percent, I’ve never made this mistake, and I even hate to admit it, but I had it in third gear, I didn’t have it in the right gear. I was so excited to be on the second row thinking like, ‘Yo, I just keep my foot in this, we can get a top five,’ and I just…” Muniz said in the post-race interview.

His last strong run was a 10th at Daytona to open 2024, post which he had many not-so-memorable races, making this Michigan finish a lifeline. The race itself was chaos, the mistake that Muniz mentioned being a restart with five laps left, 18-year-old rookie Gio Ruggiero and Cup star Ross Chastain led the pack, both on old tires.

Anxious pushes from behind turned messy fast. Ruggiero held off accelerating, hoping to gain an edge into Turn 1, but tires spun, trucks slid, and Chastain got hooked by Ruggiero, triggering a 12-truck pileup. Corey LaJoie dodged through from fifth to first, while Chastain’s truck, championship leader Corey Heim’s ride, and others, including Muniz, Jake Garcia, Tanner Gray, Daniel Hemric, and Ben Rhodes, were caught in the wreck.

Muniz was thrilled not just for himself but for the entire team. “I am so mad at myself, but in the same sense, I am thrilled for the team, for me just to have a good run. I was racing with the 98, I was racing with the 99, I was racing with really good trucks the whole race. Side by side, it’s what I needed for my confidence again to prove to myself I can race in this series. We should’ve had a top ten there. I’ll take the 14, but easy could have had a top 10 there if I didn’t happen to make the mistake, but thrilled for the team, thrilled for Morgan and Morgan. It feels good because the last couple of weeks I was like, ‘Why am I even trying?’ This makes me go, ‘Oh no no, keep going.’”

After enduring 6 DNFs, this 14th-place finish by the driver could be a huge moment for the team. With an average finish position of 25, positives have been few and far this year, so Frankie Muniz and Reaume Brothers can build on this momentum for the upcoming races. Meanwhile, there was an even bigger comeback in terms of the race winner, as the Michigan race delivered a wild-card finish.

Friesen breaks 72-race winless streak at Michigan

Stewart Friesen stole the show at Michigan, hoisting the trophy after a wild triple-overtime finish in the DQS Solutions & Staffing 250. The Canadian driver snapped a 72-race winless streak, his first victory since Texas in 2022, edging out Grant Enfinger’s Chevrolet by a razor-thin 0.111 seconds.

Friesen, in the No. 52 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota, wasn’t a frontrunner all day but pounced when it mattered, taking the inside line on the final restart and dueling Enfinger through two extra overtime laps. The crowd roared for the 41-year-old Ontario native as he celebrated his fourth career win. “I don’t know what to say, thank you to Chris Halmar and all these sponsors and all these race fans, I know there’s a lot of Canadians and a lot of Americans,” Friesen said, soaking in the cheers.

Enfinger’s runner-up matched his season-best from Las Vegas, leaving him wondering what could’ve been. “We weren’t as good as we thought we were in practice, but man, (crew chief) Jeff (Stankiewicz) kept swinging stuff at it and got gutsy with both calls,” he said. ThorSport Racing’s Luke Fenhaus, fresh off his first career pole, took third, followed by teammate Ben Rhodes, and Spire Motorsports’ Corey LaJoie rounded out the top 5.

The race stayed clean through the first two stages, but the final one brought seven cautions, with the late wreck wiping out leaders like Chastain and Heim, who’d dominated with 29 laps led. Carson Hocevar, a Michigan native, led a race-high 56 laps, dreaming of a home-track win, only to get a penalty for jumping the second overtime restart too early, dropping him to 11th. Matt Crafton, Jake Garcia, Chandler Smith, rookie Andres Perez De Lara, and Layne Riggs rounded out the top 10, with Muniz’s 14th marking his best since Daytona.

Heim, despite an 18th-place finish, stretched his points lead to 133 over Chandler Smith. The Truck Series takes a breather while Xfinity and Cup hit Mexico City, returning June 20 for the Miller Tech Battery 200 at Pocono. Friesen’s win stole the headlines, but Muniz’s emotional 14th lit a fire, proving he’s got the heart to keep battling in NASCAR’s wild ride.