Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Baptist Health 200 Media Availability | Homestead-Miami Speedway
Friday, October 25, 2024
Frankie Muniz announced earlier this week that he will be driving full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series next season with Reaume Brothers Racing. He visited the infield media center at Homestead-Miami Speedway before today’s practice and qualifying session to talk about the move with reporters.
FRANKIE MUNIZ, No. 33 Reaume Brothers Ford F-150 – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY AND WHAT THAT MEANS TO YOU? “I’m absolutely thrilled, obviously, that we got to make the announcement to be driving for Reaume Brothers next year full-time. I mean, my plans for this year definitely changed from what we thought it was gonna be and being part-time is not easy. It’s hard to watch, but it’s also hard knowing that I just need experience to play catch-up to all of the people I’m competing against, and to be out of the car or truck as much as I was this year was tough. So, I was super excited to get my deal done early. We’ve known that I was gonna sign with them for a while now and be able to announce it to where I’m literally starting today is prepping for next year. Even for my wife and my life and my son to know, here is where we’re gonna be when, it just makes it so nice to plan ahead.”
DO YOU LIVE IN THE CHARLOTTE AREA NOW? “I live in Scottsdale, Arizona. I will be based out of Charlotte during the season next year. That’s the plan. I want to put myself into every situation I can to be better as a race car driver, so if that’s spending more time with the team, if that’s going over stuff with engineers and watching past races and with my spotter and being in the simulator that I’m lucky enough that Ford really gives me a lot of access to, great, but let’s do it. Going back and forth is not easy and I just want to fully immerse myself in being a NASCAR driver and the best way to do that is to really be by the team in Charlotte.”
WHAT KEPT YOU GOING THIS YEAR WITHOUT HAVING AS MANY OPPORTUNITIES AS YOU HAD HOPED? “It was definitely hard, especially the races that we did do weren’t great. We had either bad luck or I just wasn’t good. Like in Phoenix this year I was awful, so I take it to heart because I want to be out there. I want to prove that I can do it, but how can I even prove it to myself if I’m not out there doing it. It’s hard on my family because this year we thought was gonna be one thing and it wasn’t, so there’s a lot of me having down days of just thinking like, ‘Man, I was gonna do this or I thought I was gonna be here.’ The plan changing so much to where my wife went to Italy by herself this year because I couldn’t commit to going with her because I needed to be available for something that we thought was gonna happen and didn’t happen. I want to be a better husband for her. One reason I said I went racing in general was to be an inspiration for my son, but if I’m not doing that, then what am I doing? So, that’s why it was really important for me to start focusing on 2025 and kind of get everything shored up. I don’t want to be thinking about where I’m gonna be next week because it takes away from focusing on where you are right then. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that next year.”
DID YOU EVER THINK THIS MIGHT NOT WORK OUT? “I’m definitely not a quitter. I jumped into stock cars for the first time last year and I wanted to look back at this experience, good or bad, whatever it is, and feel like I tried my best. I gave it a fair shot. I don’t want to do it and go, ‘I wonder if I did one more season’ or ‘I wonder if I kept going what could we have done?’ If you asked me what my plan is for 2026, I couldn’t tell you. I really want to give next year a full blown effort and see where we stack up and make the decision based on what we see we do.”
YOU GOT SICK OVER THE SUMMER. DID THAT AFFECT WHAT YOU WERE PLANNING TO DO ON THE TRACK? “Not necessarily. I got really sick. I was sick for almost six weeks, like literally in bed. I lost 30 pounds. It was bad. I got some crazy parasite in Mexico, so I’m not going there anytime soon, but it didn’t – to be honest. I was supposed to be full-time this year and then when that happened I was gonna do 10 races in Xfinity and a bunch of Truck races and it just kept evolving. With the situation I had it’s tough because I’m so grateful to be a Ford driver, but there’s not a ton of seats and obviously at midseason they’re full, so where do you go? What do you do? So, trying to figure that out but still doing at least enough races to keep used to it so that if the opportunity does come up I can do it. It’s hard to watch. It’s really hard to watch on TV as a driver. You want to be out there competing and especially for me. I want to keep learning. I know I’ve said that for two years. I said it last year in ARCA, but I still have so much that I need to experience for the first time and that’s really the goal for these last two races. I’m doing Miami. I’m doing Phoenix. Not that we’re using it as a test session, but we’re using it to gel as a team and then figure out what I need or me figure out what I need, put myself in situations for the first time with these drivers and just be better prepares so when we show up at Daytona we’re head down and trying to be as competitive as possible.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY GOALS SET FOR NEXT SEASON? “I think a realistic goal, obviously as a race car driver I say I want to win. I want to be the best, but realistically the series is tough. There are a lot of good drivers and a lot of good teams, but I think if we could consistently be in the top 20 that would be a huge achievement for us. I know that Josh Reaume is ultra motivated. That’s what I really love about him. There are some teams that you talk to that they’re kind of not stuck in their ways, but just accept where they are and he is not that at all. He wants to bring the team to be the highest level it can possibly be, and I think what I can bring to that is my relationship with Ford. They’re now gonna be an actual Ford team and get the support from Ford as a manufacturer, which in itself is gonna help the performance, and the access that we get to all that stuff. So, I’m excited to help build the team with them and I know they’re excited to have me, so I think we’re gonna work really well together.”
WHAT DO YOU FEEL PROUD OF THIS YEAR, SOMETHING THAT WAS A LEARNING MOMENT? “As a driver, I don’t want to sound negative, but I’ve tried to forget most of what I did this year, to be honest. I’m just being 100 percent honest. There’s nothing I can say, ‘Well, that was good’ or ‘That built my confidence.’ The Truck races that I did, I feel really good with even though we didn’t have the result we wanted. We had a puncture behind the pace car in Kansas. We literally went down two laps before the race even started, so I haven’t felt like I’ve gotten the opportunity to even try to race with people. I’m like, ‘I’m on my own. Just try not to wreck anybody.’ It’s a weird mindset to be in, but at the same time I take those experiences and the speed that we did have when we were running and go, ‘OK, I can do this. I can compete with these guys.’ I obviously need to get better at our qualifying – the single lap qualifying thing. I’ve never been so nervous in my life – the fact that you have to perform in that one moment. In ARCA, you had a 20-minute session, but we’d always go out and do two laps. I know in my mind you have another try, so getting better at that and pit stops – weird things like that that I just haven’t experienced much to be ready for next season. I guess the positive to bring is that I did go to Josh and get that first try in the truck at Nashville and realized I love it and now I know what I’m doing next year, so I guess that’s the positive.”
ARE YOU 100 PERCENT FROM THE SUMMER? “I’m 100 percent. There’s no effects from being sick anymore. I’m ready to put my head down and go fast.”
DOES THIS CLOSE THE WINDOW ON ACTING BECAUSE DURING YOUR ARCA SEASON THERE WAS A MOVIE YOU DID? “Yeah, I think that movie is coming out the week before Daytona. That’s what I heard, so that’s gonna be interesting. But, no, my focus is 100 percent being a race car driver. There are gaps, but I’m not trying to fill them with other things. Obviously, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. As an actor, you don’t know what opportunity may come up where you go, ‘Hey, it’s a week. We have three weeks off. Yeah, let me do it.’ So, I’m not closing the door 100 percent to it, but I don’t want people to think I’m just doing this part-time or I’m just doing this as a hobby. I’m kind of doing it on the side. No, those three weeks are gonna be used to prep for the next six races in a row or whatever it may be, so that’s the focus.”
YOU WANT TO BE THE RACE CAR DRIVER THAT ACTS SOMETIMES VERSUS THE OTHER WAY AROUND? “Yeah. When you are competing – everyone out there this is their lives. Everyone in the Truck Series, they’re trying to make it to the Xfinity Series or they’re trying to make it to the Cup Series. They are dedicating every waking moment to being the best driver they can be, so how could I think that I could come in and do it halfway? You can’t, especially I think this weekend is my 25th oval race of my life. I didn’t grow up racing late models or have tons of experience, so I have to focus even more on learning and improving just to catch up. That’s my focus. That’s my goal. I don’t want people just to hear that I’m a race car driver or me to just say that I’m a race car driver, I want people to believe it and the only way to get them to believe it is to go out there and do it and impress. Racing is not subjective. You’re either at the top of the leaderboard or you’re not, so you kind of see where you stand and what you need to work on and that’s what I’m gonna do.”
IS IT HARDER THAN YOU THOUGHT TO LAND SPONSORSHIP FOR RACING? “I think what’s surprising is there are a lot of big brands on race cars. One thing, and this is nothing against it, but a lot of companies you see on a lot of cars are family members or dads or friends companies and stuff like that. I would say that it has surprised me, like even this week with the announcement. I didn’t know how well it would be received, but it kind of went everywhere. I was watching Sportscenter and they were talking about me joining the Truck Series, so it’s great in the sense that maybe it’s getting eyeballs to the series that don’t watch, and I hope so. But, at that same time I go, my phone isn’t ringing off the hook with potential sponsors. That’s part of the job. You’re constantly searching for funds. I would say 90 percent of being a race car driver is finding funding to continue to do it, so that said we’re great for next year. Obviously, we would love to add more partners because then I could do more races. I could add ARCA races. We can do other things just to keep getting as much experience as possible and that’s our goal as a team.”
THERE HAS TO BE A BIG MALCOLM FAN OUT THERE, RIGHT? “I’m sure Elon Musk watched. I bet that SpaceX truck would look really good. A lot of it is relationships and finding someone who believes in what you’re trying to do and that’s what we’re trying to tell the story of what we’re trying to achieve and what we can offer to them. It’s got to be a win-win for everybody and that’s what we try to do as a team and me as a driver to make sure that they’re not just writing a check and it’s having me go racing. They’re actually benefiting from what we’re doing on the racetrack.”
