BRISTOL, Tenn. — Ryan Blaney, seeking his first NASCAR Cup Series victory at Bristol Motor Speedway, got off to a flying start in Saturday’s time trials at the 0.533-mile high-banked concrete track.
Finding the speed he needed on the second of two qualifying laps, Blaney covered the distance in 15.101 seconds (127.064 mph) to edge Tyler Reddick for the top starting spot in Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Driving the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, Blaney was 0.023 seconds faster than Reddick (126.871 mph), who will try to win his fifth race of the season in the No.45 23XI Racing Toyota.
The Busch Light Pole Award was Blaney’s second at Bristol, his first of the season and the 13th of his career.
“I just kind of got free on Lap 1, landing into (Turn) 1,” said Blaney, who recovered through Turns 3 and 4 to set up his second lap. “Luckily, the rear tires came in better the second lap in (Turns) 1 and 2, and then 3 and 4, I thought was a really good corner … ”
“Good start to the weekend. Now we’ve got to do 500 laps.”
Blaney has finished sixth or better in his last three starts at Bristol, but on Sunday, Cup Series drivers will be adjusting to both a new tire combination from Goodyear and a new short-track competition package featuring higher horsepower and lower downforce.
“I think just being ready for the track to change is the biggest thing for me,” Blaney said. “It’s going to run one way for a little bit, but it’s going to change eventually …”
“Tomorrow, we’re going to be everywhere, ‘cause the top (lane) is going to come in tomorrow, and that’s going to be completely different from what you need to run the bottom. It’s been a pretty decent place for us. Hopefully, tomorrow we can contend for the win.”
Chase Briscoe qualified third at 126.779 mph in his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. Riley Herbst (125.679 mph), the third driver to make a qualifying run, was fourth, giving 23XI two of the top four starting positions.
Ty Gibbs, who led 201 laps in his last Bristol start, was fifth, followed by Ross Chastain in the fastest Chevrolet. Chris Buescher, three-time Bristol winner Kyle Larson, Austin Cindric and Carson Hocevar filled out positions seven through 10 on the grid.
The cars of Larson and Chastain — along with those of Cole Custer and Chad Finchum — failed pre-race inspection twice, resulting in the ejection of their respective car chiefs and loss of pit selection for Sunday’s race.
The No. 71 Chevrolet of Michael McDowell also failed twice, resulting in the ejection of an engineer and loss of pit selection.
Stenhouse sews up practice’s top spot
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. topped the charts in Cup Series practice at Bristol, leading the charge with a lap of 15.403 seconds (124.573 mph) in his Hyak Motorsports No. 47 Chevrolet.
Stenhouse went out in the first of two groups, establishing his best time in the fifth of the 50 total laps he turned. His fast time was just 0.036 seconds ahead of second-fastest Noah Gragson, who went 124.283 mph in the Front Row Motorsports No. 4 Ford.
Austin Cindric led the second group and posted the third-fastest lap overall in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford. Erik Jones and Bubba Wallace rounded out the top five in that order, in a pair of Toyotas.
By his own description, Chase Elliott’s 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season has been one of ups and downs.
The high point came on March 29 at Martinsville Speedway, where Elliott held off Denny Hamlin for the victory. Never before in his Cup career had Elliott won as early as the seventh race of a season.
It’s not in Elliott’s nature, however, to get overly excited by success. Nor to get too disappointed when it doesn’t happen. But the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet sees the early victory as an opportunity to build a meaningful season.
“Fortunately, the last one was an ‘up,'” Elliott said of the Martinsville win. “But I think it’s also important to recognize that, man, there’s an awful lot of racing left. I think for us, it’s not like, ‘OK, we’ve got the win and pressure’s off.’ That’s not how I’ve looked at it.
“I’ve looked at it with, honestly, just some excitement from the standpoint of, man, we have a longer runway to build on a win. I think for us, we’ve gotten to the last 10 or 15 weeks of the year before and really had to perform just at an extreme level and kind of catch up, in some regards.”
He added, “Like, even last year, we got ourselves to the playoffs and we didn’t have the wins, the playoff points and all the things banked up.
“I know the system’s different [return to the 10-race Chase format this year] and I get all that, but the concept is very much the same,” Elliott said. “We still need to perform well throughout the first 26 weeks, and I think when you are able to bank a win early, you kind of have a little bit of a longer runway to continue to put good runs together, stack more points and get going on the right foot.”
Fresh from victory in Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell turned serious — and honest — when asked about the current state of his NASCAR Cup Series program at Joe Gibbs Racing.
“We are missing something,” acknowledged the driver of the No. 20 Cup Series Toyota.
It’s not that Bell is having a brutal season. He’s seventh in the Cup standings, with three top fives and four top 10s in seven races. Bell’s 225 laps led are the second most in the series behind teammate Denny Hamlin’s 440.
Nevertheless, Bell conveyed disappointment at his failure to win a race so far this season.
“We have the same group, same people, same process and same equipment that we did when we won three races in a row last year,” Bell said. “We have all the resources. We’re just kind of swimming up creek a little bit.”
Bell pointed to the March event at Phoenix Raceway as a pivotal point in the early season. Bell led a race-high 176 laps, but Ryan Blaney took advantage of a late caution to win the race.
“I think, had that yellow flag not come out at Phoenix, and I won the race, we’d be sitting here talking about how great of a season I’ve had,” he said. “But the yellow flag did come out at Phoenix, and I didn’t win the race, and now we’re talking about a mediocre season.
“It just isn’t clicking right now on the Cup side. It feels like it’s really close to clicking, but we’re still striving to be where we need to be and want to be.”
See where your favorite NASCAR Cup Series, O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series drivers will pit this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
NASCAR Cup Series
NASCAR Cup Series Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FS1, FOX One, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Five cars in the NASCAR Cup Series garage at Bristol Motor Speedway failed pre-race technical inspection multiple times, resulting in penalties.
The vehicles belonging to Kyle Larson, Michael McDowell, Ross Chastain, Cole Custer and Chad Finchum all failed twice ahead of Sunday’s race in Thunder Valley (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), but all passed on a third time through. As a result, the teams have lost pit selection for the Tennessee 500-lapper, and one crew member for each has been ejected.
Adam Sturgill (Engineer, No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet)
David Fero (Car chief, No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet)
Scott Brewer (Car chief, No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet)
Dylan Roberts (Car chief, No. 66 Garage 66 Ford)
Larson is the defending spring winner at Bristol and is currently ninth in points. McDowell is 17th, Chastain is 19th and Custer is 34th. Finchum is making his first Cup Series start of the 2026 season.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Alex Bowman was back at the race track Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway, saying he’s back to feeling well after a month-long bout with vertigo.
Bowman’s remarks came two days after his Hendrick Motorsports team announced he was cleared to return to NASCAR Cup Series competition in Sunday’s Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). He is set to load back into his No. 48 Chevrolet for practice and qualifying later Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
Bowman missed the last four Cup Series races with vertigo, which forced him to the sidelines during the March 1 event at Circuit of The Americas. Myatt Snider subbed in for Bowman the rest of the way in Austin, Texas, and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regulars Anthony Alfredo (Phoenix) and Justin Allgaier (Las Vegas, Darlington, Martinsville) were fill-ins in subsequent weeks.
“Obviously, COTA wasn’t a lot of fun for me,” Bowman said Saturday. “I mean, everything was fine until it wasn’t obviously in the car — dizziness, throwing up on myself, spinning, all the things. So it wasn’t fun. Not pumped that I had to get out. Obviously, I’ve raced through a lot of injuries, but that was one where I was going to end up running into something or somebody, and the smart thing to do in that case was to get out. Just spent a lot of time with a lot of different doctors and had a lot of different help to go about the best rehab process possible and best practices going forward, and everything to get back to where I needed to be to get back in the car.”
But upon exiting the car at COTA, Bowman didn’t know if getting back in the car would ever be an option.
“Honestly, yeah, when I got out at COTA, I was like, this is probably it,” Bowman said. “Like, that was what was going through my head. So yeah, that sucked. Thankful that I get another shot at it.”
Bowman tested a street car at the Ten Tenths Motor Club circuit on Tuesday, then participated in pit practice, simulator testing and a medical evaluation in preparation for his return. Jeff Andrews, Hendrick Motorsports’ president and general manager, added that Bowman was cleared without restrictions, so the team does not have a backup driver “on call” this weekend in anticipation of Bowman completing the full 500-lap contest.
“The biggest thing is with vertigo being a symptom, just trying to find what was causing everything and why it happened and what the right path going forward was,” Bowman said. “There was definitely, for me, concern there, but at the same time, just trying to get back feeling well enough to do life. Fortunately, I had a lot of really great people around me that helped me a ton. The boss (team owner Rick Hendrick) flew me around to different places that I needed to be and all the things that we needed to do to give me the best help that we could get. Now I’m feeling really good, so thankful to be back feeling well.”
Chris Condon | Getty Images
Bowman’s test days at the Ten Tenths Motor Club targeted his dizziness. In his first attempt, briefly after COTA, he ran only a couple of laps before feeling ill again. Finally, five weeks after the onset of his vertigo symptoms, Bowman has rid himself of that instability, feeling well enough through karting, pit practice and different workout regimens to re-establish a semblance of normalcy.
But Bristol is anything but normal. The 0.533-mile bullring is a steeply banked rollercoaster of a concrete race track with 15-second lap times that send the healthiest drivers for a loop. Why come back this week?
“Because they said I could,” Bowman said. “I mean, I’m a race-car driver, so you tell me I’m clear and I’m gonna go do it. It’s probably the worst place possible to come back to, I think not just from it’s physical, but it’s a track that is extremely difficult. The margins from the front to the back of the field are tiny. You look at qualifying here, and every hundredth (of a second) is multiple spots for the most part. I haven’t qualified a car in a month. Trying to get back up to speed.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult for me. My expectations coming here, it’s one of my best tracks — two of the last three poles here, expect to contend for wins. I think expectations probably change a little bit this week. If we could get out of here with a top 10, top 15, I think on my side of things, I’d be happy. But I think (Saturday) will be the hardest part, just getting back up to speed and trying to qualify after sitting on the couch.”
In Bowman’s absence, crew chief Blake Harris has led the No. 48 team without its primary driver. With Bowman back behind the wheel, Harris has no concerns that they’ll be back to normal soon.
“I think coming back to Bristol in general is just a place that he’s run really well, our company has performed well,” Harris told NASCAR.com Saturday morning. “So I think it’s good that the first week he’s coming back, it’s at a place that we’ll have some confidence in the cars and stuff with him, and really just good to kind of get back in routine with the guy that we’re used to preparing with every week and looking forward to it.”
The team ranks 34th in owners’ points through seven races, but that hasn’t been for a lack of effort. Through his recovery, Bowman stayed as plugged into the group’s communications as Alfredo and Allgaier jumped into the cockpit.
“I think it’s no secret that it’s been a rough year on the 48 team,” Bowman said, “and the two of them worked super hard to give it all they had. So appreciative of all their help. I spent a lot of time talking to Justin today before I came in here, too. Those guys were super helpful and really appreciate it.”
Bowman was originally scheduled to miss the Bristol weekend. His clearance this week meant another set of hustling for Harris and the No. 48 crew, but they were happy to do so if it meant their main driver was back behind the wheel.
“We’ve been just kind of back on our heels trying to react on whatever’s thrown at us,” Harris said. “To be honest, this week, once Alex was approved to get back in and get all his stuff back in the car and all those things, it wasn’t much different to what that’s kind of been to us, it seemed like, every week.”
But this isn’t the first time Bowman and Harris have navigated adversity together. In 2023, their first season paired, Bowman missed three races with a broken vertebra after a sprint-car crash. At the time, he and the No. 48 team were leading the points standings. Going through that process together once before has helped bond the duo for another unwanted situation.
“He should have the confidence in me knowing that whenever he’s ready to come back, we’ll have the team ready and the car ready and really lean into that,” Harris said. “There was no necessary timeline to when he had to be back, just whenever he felt good.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
That support has come from the top down, from Hendrick to Andrews on down the line.
“Alex Bowman has always been the driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, and we never had questions about whose seat that was,” Andrews said. “I think we said that early on that we would follow 100% the medical guidelines that we were given (to) plan Alex’s return when it was medically cleared, as well as when Alex said he was ready.
“For us, Alex is part of our team. He’s a key teammate for us and been an integral part of our company for quite some time. So we were willing to do what we needed to do to wait for him and get him back in at the right time. I think it’s a testament to Alex and how hard he worked to be back a week early.”
As Bowman said, Bristol is a track where he excels, collecting three top 10s and two pole positions in the last four Bristol races. He and the No. 48 team also participated in a Goodyear tire test in November, during which Harris said they completed nearly 500 laps — a full race length — to build a notebook.
The goal now is to begin a charge up the standings. While the No. 48 car is 34th in owners’ points, Bowman is saddled even further behind in 36th on the drivers’ side after missing four races.
“We want to win, and if you win, then that fixes all other things,” Harris said. “I think if you look at owners’ points or the drivers’ points, it’s definitely a tough road, right? There’s some things that have to go right. But I think, really, the next few weeks for us — going to Bristol; going to Kansas; Talladega, we’ve scored a lot of points and were really good at speedways. Texas has been a place he’s been really fast at. Like, if you just go the next three or four weeks and see how things go, I think that’ll kind of lay out really what that means.
“So I think again, if we can just run well and be in contention for wins and win some races, then I think the rest kind of works itself out.”
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver Christopher Bell was thrilled to have an opportunity to drive the No. 62 Halmar Friesen Toyota in Friday night’s Tennessee Army National Guard 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
After crossing the finish line first, he had reason to be positively elated.
Corey Heim, on the other hand, had 350,000 reasons to be disappointed, after his dream of completing the Triple Truck Challenge — and earning a $350,000 bonus — ended prematurely against the Turn 1 wall.
Bell grabbed the lead from Christian Eckes on Lap 188 of 250 and held it the rest of the way, with Chandler Smith moving into second after a subsequent restart on Lap 224 and chasing Bell to the checkered flag.
Finishing 0.330 seconds ahead of Smith’s No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford, Bell scored his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory since 2017, his first on the 0.533-mile short track and the eighth of his career.
Bell was enlisted to substitute for injured Stewart Friesen in last year’s Truck Series race at Watkins Glen. On Friday night, he raced as Friesen’s teammate and finished three positions better than he had at the Upstate New York road course.
“Oh, man, that was just so awesome to win a truck race,” Bell said. “It’s been since 2017 that I’ve won one of these things. It’s a lot of fun racing with this group. I got the unfortunate call last year to drive for Stewart when he was hurt, went up to Watkins Glen and almost got it.
“They’ve been working really hard to get to Victory Lane. Just so special for me to be able to race with these guys. These wins, they mean a lot to this team, this organization.”
The most recent Cup Series winner at Thunder Valley, Bell will race Sunday in the Food City 500 (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Heim’s bid for an extra $350,000 ($500,000 total) for a third straight Triple Truck Challenge victory ended abruptly on Lap 180, moments after he had muscled past Christian Eckes to lead his only lap of the race.
Contact from Eckes’ front bumper to the right rear of Heim’s No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota sent Heim spinning into the outside wall. Pole winner Kaden Honeycutt T-boned into Heim’s Tundra, with the No. 34 Ford of two-time Bristol winner Layne Riggs nosing into Honeycutt’s truck in a chain-reaction collision.
Tricon teammates Heim and Honeycutt exited the race under the resulting red flag. With the single lap led to his credit, Heim has now led the last 30 straight Truck Series races he has entered, but that was no consolation for losing the $350,000 bonus he would have collected for winning the race.
“I don’t think he did it on purpose or anything,” Heim said graciously of the contact from Eckes’ Chevrolet. “I think the lead was super important to win the race, just having track position and control. Then they had a mix-up on who was starting the race as far as the control truck.
“I had an issue with my transmission sticking into gears, and I had to pack a little bit of air. I don’t think I touched him to get him out of the way. He was already free. I just packed some air and got him free. I think he was trying to get behind me and ship me, which would have been fine because I did it to him. Just misjudged it.
“I’ve been racing him for a long time, and I don’t think he would do that on purpose, so we are all good.”
After losing ground on the final restart, Eckes finished fifth behind Bell, Smith, Gio Ruggiero and Cup driver Ross Chastain. Jake Garcia, Dawson Sutton, Kyle Busch, Carson Hocevar and rookie Brenden Queen completed the top 10.
The race featured nine cautions for 76 laps. Eckes led a race-high 132 laps to Bell’s 63 and won the first stage. Ben Rhodes stayed out under caution on Lap 122 and claimed the Stage 2 win.
The Craftsman Truck Series returns to action Friday, May 1, at Texas Motor Speedway (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Note: Inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage was completed without issues, confirming Bell as the Bristol winner.
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Christian Eckes and Corey Heim made contact battling for the lead late in Friday’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, sparking a heavy multi-truck crash and ending a chance at history.
At Lap 179, Heim passed Eckes in Turns 3 and 4 using his bumper, and in the following set of corners, Eckes made contact with Heim’s right-rear fender, sending the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota into the wall. Kaden Honeycutt — the polesitter — had nowhere to go, piling into his teammate, Heim. Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs and Cup Series regular Chase Briscoe were also involved.
After the race, Eckes took responsibility for the incident.
“Obviously, it wasn’t intentional to spin him or even hit him,” Eckes said after the race. “I was just trying to get in line and misjudged it, and he ended up wrecking pretty hard. I feel pretty small right now about that. I wanted to get behind him to race him and maybe repay the favor, but obviously, had no intention of getting into him and spinning him like that. Just feel terrible about that, for sure.”
Heim, the defending series champion and a part-time competitor in 2026, was looking to become the first driver to sweep all three Triple Truck Challenge races. He won three weeks ago at Darlington Raceway, and last weekend at Rockingham Speedway, he took the victory in dominant fashion.
In a bit of a twist, the frustrations that often come with Bristol weren’t apparent for Heim, and he understood the contact from Eckes, regardless of the intent.
“Just got hooked a little bit there,” Heim said. “I think I was trying to maintain the lead. Everyone kind of knew, based on the way the race was playing out, that we needed to lead, so kind of gave Christian a nudge to get that, and I believe he just misjudged it trying to get back in line and do the same to me, which would have been totally fine considering I’d just done it to him. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he misjudged it, I think I’m all good. It’s just kind of, you know, crap happens, and kind of move on from it.”
Honeycutt entered Friday night’s contest as the co-points leader alongside Heim. His night ended with the wreck, ending a streak of three consecutive top-five runs going back to St. Petersburg.
“I don’t really know what in the world those two were doing,” Honeycutt said of Eckes and Heim’s mischief out front. “But definitely trickled down to us and a couple other trucks. Unfortunately, history repeated itself, and they got into it, and it’s an unfortunate doing for sure.
“I never actually saw the contact, but when I saw the 91 shoot up, I figured Christian just didn’t blow the corner on purpose. I was assuming that the 1 hit him, but I wasn’t really sure. But yeah, I guess he got into him again on that restart. Corey is an amazing race-car driver. I’m not going to say it was his fault, but I think they both could have done definitely something different to not have that situation escalate with so many laps left in the race like that.”
Heim and Eckes competed against each other on a full-time basis in the Truck Series from 2023 to 2024. Eckes, driving for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, briefly moved to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series last year for Kaulig Racing before moving back to trucks this season. The two had a run-in in 2024 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park as they were in the mix for the championship.
But Friday night, two of the most dominant Truck Series drivers over the last several seasons departed Bristol empty-handed.
Eckes finished fifth after leading a race-high 132 laps, but moved up two spots in points to fifth.
Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith retook the Truck Series points lead from both Heim and Honeycutt after the incident, and on top of dropping the points lead and a totaled Toyota Tundra, there will be no “Half-Million-Dollar Heim” to close out the Triple Truck Challenge.
“That sucks, for sure,” Eckes admitted. “They deserve to win half a million bucks today, and I took that away from them.”
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Triple Truck Challenge incentive program returns for the 2026 season, with a trio of intriguing races making up this year’s event.
This hub page will provide you with everything you need to know about the program, including links and more for each race event. Continue to monitor this hub as results from each Triple Truck Challenge race are added.
Beginning in 2019, “The Trip” is a program that rewards drivers financially for performing well during a three-race stretch in each Truck Series season. Over that span, a $50,000 bonus is awarded to the winner of each race. Should a driver win multiple events, the bonus money increases. If a driver wins two out of three races, he or she will be awarded $150,000. If a driver wins all three Triple Truck Challenge races, $500,000 total is awarded.
Where will the Triple Truck Challenge take place this season?
“The Trip” begins its 2026 stretch on March 20 at Darlington Raceway. The second of the three Triple Truck Challenge races will be on April 3 at Rockingham Speedway. The 2026 Triple Truck Challenge finale will occur on April 10 at Bristol Motor Speedway. All three venues have hosted the program in prior years; Bristol and Rockingham made up two of the three races during the 2025 stretch, while Darlington hosted the event most recently in 2021.
Who qualifies for the Triple Truck Challenge?
In order to qualify for the Triple Truck Challenge, drivers must be declared to collect Craftsman Truck Series points.
A victory at Darlington Raceway seemed out of reach for Corey Heim, until a double overtime restart at least. The defending Truck Series champion restarted ninth and tracked down Ross Chastain in the final corner to win both the race and a $50,000 payday at the track “Too Tough To Tame.”
Twice is most definitely quite nice. Corey Heim dominated the day at ‘The Rock,’ leading 178 of 200 laps for his second consecutive Triple Truck Challenge win, upping his payday to $150,000. He did, however, need to fend off Tricon Garage teammate Kaden Honeycutt in the final laps as Heim battled late steering gremlins.
***
At Bristol Motor Speedway (April 10)
Note: A Triple Truck Challenge winner was not awarded because the race winner was not declared for series points. Cup Series driver Christopher Bell won the race for Halmar Friesen Racing, leading 63 laps.
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When “Malcolm in the Middle” last aired in 2006, lead actor Frankie Muniz was 20 years old, still very much in the hustle and bustle of Hollywood.
Twenty years later, the show is back with a four-episode reunion on Hulu and Disney+ — as evidenced by the sky-blue vinyl wrap donning the No. 33 Team Reaume Ford F-150 that Muniz drove in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday.
Muniz’s face was prominently featured on the rear corners of the race truck, surrounded by those of Bryan Cranston, Jane Kaczmarek and his familiar castmates that made the show a 2000s staple. But Muniz isn’t a kid actor anymore. He’s a grown man with a family, pouring his soul into being a full-time race-car driver in NASCAR’s national levels. It just so happens he’s now reliving part of his childhood back in the public eye of the mainstream.
“I never thought I’d experience it again,” Muniz told NASCAR.com Friday morning at Bristol. “But it’s been really awesome. Obviously, I’m also driving (Friday) in the ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ Ford F-150, which I don’t know that that’s ever happened before — like a driver promoting their TV show that’s coming out the same day. But I’m super-excited for both worlds colliding, and hopefully people love it.”
These days, Muniz is a full-time racer in the midst of his fourth full-time season in stock cars, a journey that has been mixed with glorious highs and heart-wrenching lows. Toss in filming a four-episode reunion in Vancouver while balancing racing, fatherhood, marriage … it all began to take its toll on Muniz.
“I always feel bad — the word’s not complaining, but explaining how just crazy busy I am because everyone’s busy,” Muniz said. “Life is busy in general. But being an actor, filming a show, promoting a show, that’s a full-time gig that most actors would be like, ‘Oh, I need a six-month vacation in Hawai’i.’ Because it’s just a lot. It’s really draining.
“But then mix in the fact that I’ve got to be prepared and ready to compete almost every single week in the Truck Series and traveling all over. … Since Feb. 1, I’ve only been home four days. I’ve already been on, I think, 80 flights this year. It’s been a lot. Sure, people are gonna go ‘first-world problems.’ I’m exhausted, I’m not gonna lie.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
What keeps him going is what pushed him back into racing in the first place: serving as an inspiration to his 5-year-old son, Mauz.
Muniz knows the great fortune he’s had to be so many things — a Hollywood star; a drummer in indie-rock band Kingsfoil; a real-life, full-fledged race-car driver. But when he held his son in his arms for the first time in 2021, he couldn’t help but wonder: “Who is he gonna grow up thinking that I am?”
Five years later, Muniz is back in the Hollywood limelight, rattling through press and premieres that featured an early-week gamut of appearances in New York City, where his face was featured on a 200-foot billboard in Times Square.
“I wanted him to understand work ethic and sacrifice and all those things, right?” Muniz said. “And I wanted him to understand why we had the things that we had, not just think that it’s normal. And so I decided to go racing to be an inspiration to him. In that same token, it has completely taken me away from him, realistically. So even that, I’m trying to balance in a sense.”
Muniz’s stay in the Craftsman Truck Series — the first rung in the three-level ladder of NASCAR’s national series — is no publicity stunt. Muniz first started racing in 2004, during the original stint of “Malcolm in the Middle” filming, with an appearance in the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race in Long Beach. That jump-started a career that led him into open-wheel racing before a 2009 crash at Mid-Ohio sidelined him with a broken back and badly injured left thumb.
A full season of racing in the ARCA Menards Series in 2023 with one top five and 11 top 10s led to part-time opportunities in trucks and the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in 2024 before going full-time truck racing in 2025 with Team Reaume.
In 30 truck starts before Bristol, Muniz has one top 10 (10th, Michigan 2025) with an average finish of 25.6. Team Reaume is not a powerhouse team in the series, the way Toyota’s Tricon Garage or Ford’s ThorSport Racing is. Targets are always kept in check — “if we can consistently be in the top 20, that’s a good goal” — and Muniz loves the challenge, no matter the struggles that come with it.
“It is so hard,” Muniz said. “The competition I think in the Truck Series is insane this year. ARCA, I dove in after not racing for 12, 13 years. I was an open-wheel guy and then wanted to go stock-car racing. I jumped into ARCA (and) immediately had success, and it felt really, really good. So obviously, made the jump up to the Truck Series and it’s a whole different level, right?
“When you look at the entry list even this weekend at Bristol, like, how am I even out there? Like, there’s I think seven Cup drivers (in the field). Everybody in the Truck Series is really, really good. At first, I was playing catch-up for the lack of experience. Now, I have a lot of experience, but it’s trying to figure out what works for me, what works for the team.”
There are rejuvenating highs in racing, though. Muniz ventured back into sports-car racing on March 27, driving for Ford in the Pirelli GT4 America Amateur class at Sonoma Raceway. In his first appearance at the famed California road course, Muniz and co-driver Tyler Stone walked away with a second-place podium class finish, a tangible result for his unrelenting efforts.
The objective nature of sports is that results do that talking — not critics.
“It’s not subjective, right?” Muniz said. “You know, the ‘Malcolm’ show came out (Friday). I’m reading reviews. Half of them think it’s the greatest show ever, and half of them think we shouldn’t have done it. But it’s subjective. Where in racing, we were on the podium. It’s because we beat everybody. …
“That’s why I like racing, right? The highs and lows and the feelings and the emotion. And a lot of is because you just care a lot, right? If I didn’t care what, like, ‘yeah, whatever, I had a bad day.’ No. Like I want — for the team, for me — to do well. But I don’t expect it to be handed to me. So I know there’s a lot of work that goes into it, and I’m trying to do it.”
So 20 years later, long after Muniz had originally hung up the moniker of Malcolm, he’s back. He was even put in the middle of the action Friday night on the high banks of Bristol. And with the race wrapped up, folks can go from watching him race to watching him reprise his role as Malcolm on “Malcolm in the Middle” with four new episodes on Hulu and Disney+.
But no matter the oversized billboards or the fun promos you get to see him star in, Muniz is all in on racing.
“I just want everyone to know that I take this so seriously,” Muniz said. “I’m not here as a fluke or just to have fun. I’m here because I want to compete. I’m here to hopefully eventually get to where I’m competing for top 10s, top fives, maybe wins. I know I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna keep fighting for it.”
