TALLADEGA, Ala. — Frankie Muniz has learned a great deal over the last seven weeks.
It started with the proper way to use the ladder. And it evolved into how drivers speak on their in-car radios.
The actor/racer has missed the last four NASCAR truck series races after falling off a ladder trying to change the Ring batteries at his house. He broke his left wrist in the last week of August and waited for it to completely heal before returning to the driver’s seat.
Muniz, known for his starring roles in “Malcolm In The Middle” and “Agent Cody Banks,” will make his return Friday at Talladega Superspeedway.
“I listened a lot on the radio, which, obviously, when I’m racing. I don’t know what anyone else is saying,” Muniz said Thursday in the garage area at Talladega. “I don’t get to tune into Layne Riggs’ radio and hear how he gives feedback and hear the conversations they have.
“So it was cool from that aspect to watch and see what people are going through and how they handle it.”
It was also cool to see the competitiveness of the series.
Muniz will take the track for the first time in seven weeks after breaking his wrist.
“I know the racing is intense because I’m in it, but a lot of the racing, I’m like, ‘Damn, that’s, that’s what it looks like when I’m out there? That’s pretty cool,'” Muniz said.
As far as how it looked like when he fell, Muniz said he lost his balance and landed on his wrist, and he knew right away it was broken.
“I have to heed to the warning where it says, ‘Do not stand on top step,’ especially when it’s in the grass,” Muniz said about falling off a 6-foot ladder. “But you live and learn. I can’t blame anybody else except for my laziness to not go get a taller ladder out of my garage.”
The 39-year-old Muniz didn’t need surgery, just time to heal.
“It was so much pain and it was one of those things, if I was competing for the championship, could I have fought through it? It would have been hard,” Muniz said. “I thought better to truly heal and then come back and not cause more damage and make it worse.”
Obviously glad to be back, Muniz said the original recovery time for his wrist was four to eight weeks and he didn’t want to rush a return to the Reaume Brothers Racing team. He had three top-20 finishes in the first 18 races of the season.
He had a career-best finish of 10th in the season opener at Daytona — a sister track to Talladega with its high banks and pack racing. And Muniz hopes he can end the season with no more hiccups, as the series comes to a close over the next few weeks with races at Talladega, Martinsville and Phoenix.
“Hopefully things go smooth,” Muniz said. “I feel like we deserve it as a team. The guys put in so much hard work. And then even me, I’ve had times where I’m running pretty good and get taken out by things that I can’t control.
“I just hope it’s not that. If I’m 30th, and that’s where I’m at, fine, I can live with that.”
The injury interrupted a season that Muniz admitted hasn’t been the easiest.
“All people end up seeing is like, your name at the at the bottom of the leaderboard,” Muniz said. “I think the team is better than that. I think I’m better than that. And I just want to show that.
“Even for me, from a confidence standpoint, we’re 22 races in and when you have so many negative things happen, it makes you like question if you’re doing things wrong. I just want to have some smooth weekends.”
Over the last couple of months with some time not racing, Muniz did see some rough cuts of the “Malcolm In The Middle” reboot.
“I did see it,” Muniz said. “I’m excited for it to come out. People are going to love it.”
Muniz said his plans for 2026 are coming together and should be announced relatively soon.
“This has been an adventurous year, for sure,” Muniz said. “We’ve had a fair share of bad luck. But let’s just say, I’m hoping just to get all the bad luck out of it this year. And hopefully next year we’ll have a smooth sailing.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
