Frankie Muniz, who became famous around the world playing Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle, has just achieved something he had been pursuing for two decades: winning his first professional race as a driver.
At 40, Muniz won the Am class of Pirelli GT4 America at Road America, driving a Ford Mustang GT4 and sharing driving duties with Tyler Stone. The victory came after years of trying to build a career completely different from the one that made him famous.
Muniz always had a passion for cars and began competing in different categories after gradually moving away from Hollywood. He also competed in NASCAR, where he faced drivers much younger than him.
But the journey was not easy. In 2009, he suffered an accident that caused fractures in his back and heel and kept him away from the tracks for a while. Even so, he continued trying to turn his childhood passion into a profession.
Now, two decades after he began pursuing that dream, he has finally secured his first professional victory.
And the moment came just as he is going through a difficult personal period. After what he described as “the last two weeks of my life”, Muniz ended up celebrating in a place very different from the one that made him famous: the podium of a racetrack.
The boy millions knew as Malcolm is now 40, but his story shows that his dream of becoming a driver never disappeared.