Who are the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year Candidates?
What’s Happening? The Rookie of the Year battle is one of the best battles throughout the NASCAR season. The award, given…
Seven races into his NASCAR Truck Series career, Frankie Muniz currently sits at the bottom of the Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year standings. While Muniz may not be setting the NASCAR world on fire, there may be a bit of hope hiding beneath his struggles.
Actor-turned-driver Frankie Muniz made headlines with his announcement late last season that he would race full-time for Reaume Brothers racing in 2025. While RBR is not the best team in the Series, hopes were high for Frankie, as in his rookie season in the ARCA Menards Series in 2023, Muniz topped expectations, finishing in the top ten multiple times.
While he raced part-time across three Series in 2024, Muniz quickly beat expectations in this year’s opening race at Daytona. Though he finished a solid 11th after race winner Parker Kligerman’s disqualification, NASCAR awarded Muniz tenth, his first career top-ten and RBR’s fifth all-time.
However, since leaving Daytona at the top of the Rookie of the Year standings, Muniz has slowly dropped to the bottom of the heap, where he currently sits 93 points behind leader Giovanni Ruggiero. Muniz is last among rookies and next to last among all full-time drivers in average finish and average start.
While some may consider this a complete failure of a rookie season, a closer look at the stats shows that Muniz may have less to figure out than one might think.
What’s Happening? The Rookie of the Year battle is one of the best battles throughout the NASCAR season. The award, given…
Muniz sits at the bottom of most statistical categories in the NASCAR Truck Series. But the driver of the No. 33 is by no means out of place in the Series.
So, what’s keeping Muniz on track? His issues seem to have begun before the green flag was raised. For example, Muniz has only qualified inside the top 20 once this year and inside the top 25 twice. Through seven races, this has resulted in his miserable 26.7 average finish.
Nonetheless, there is one notable trend with Muniz this season. Only twice through these first seven races has he failed to improve on his starting spot. That leaves his average finish at 24.4. While that is still one of the worst in the Series, it is on par with 2024 RBR driver Lawless Alan.
His in-race improvement could be chalked up to other drivers not bringing their equipment home in one piece. After all, Muniz has three DNFs himself, though he improved on his finish in one of those races. That being said, his +2.3 increase in average start-to-average finish is seventh best in the Series.
In that esoteric category, Muniz is beaten out by drivers like Tyler Ankrum and Chandler Smith. At the same time, he currently has a better difference than points leader Corey Heim (who can’t really improve on his stellar stats).
This one stat may not be a saving grace for the No. 33. However, it does show that Frankie has a feel for the Series and, most importantly, is learning. Isn’t that the whole point of the Truck Series?
What’s Happening? Frankie Muniz’s transition from full-time actor to full-time driver has been one of the best NASCAR stories in recent…
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