Muniz Open to Further Sports Car Outings After Mustang Debut

Frankie Muniz’s first outing in Mustang Challenge has been an “eye-opener” for the 38-year-old, who described sports car racing as “a whole different beast” and expressed a hope for more outings outside of his current commitments in stock car racing.

Muniz, who currently competes in the NASCAR Xfinity Series as well as the Craftsman Truck Series, is making his Mustang Challenge debut in Saturday’s 45-minute race.

He qualified 17th overall aboard the No. 13 Spark Performance Ford Mustang Dark Horse R, which is entered into the Dark Horse class.

“They’re so fun to drive,” Muniz told Sportscar365.

“I definitely have a lot to learn, they’re a lot different than what I’m used to, but I made some good improvements during second practice.

“I didn’t really get many clear laps but I think we’ll be pretty close, a lot closer [Saturday] and ready for the race.”

Muniz set himself a goal of learning as quickly as possible, having to grapple with both an unfamiliar car as well as a new circuit for his first race in the series.

“They say [the way] to be the best race car driver is just to get in whatever you can all the time,” he said.

“Different disciplines, different types of cars, different tracks. This is my first time here.

“It’s on the NASCAR schedule for next year, not in the Trucks, so maybe I’ll do the Xfinity race here, but it’ll be nice to come back somewhere.

“The first session was a big thing, just learning the track, learning the car. Just keeping my brain in that mode.

“I didn’t get to do as much racing this year as I would have hoped, just because I was supposed to be full-time in Xfinity and ended up not happening late in the year.

“So just good to just keep my brain in it. Also today was a little bit of an eye-opener, like a wake-up call.

“This is the furthest off I’ve ever been from the lead. I was like, ‘Damn, these guys are going.’ Because I feel like I’m pushing pretty hard.

“It makes me want to just keep fighting, keep going.

“But I would love to do sports car races, do more of that in the future. It’s just so different from the NASCAR world.”

Prior to his move into stock car racing, Muniz spent time competing in various single seater series, including the likes of Formula BMW and three seasons in the Champ Car Atlantic Championship.

He described his Mustang Challenge outing as his “first proper” drive in sports cars, although he recalled a small number of Mazda MX-5 Cup starts.

“I did two of those in like 2007 and 2011 because Atlantics was a Mazda Cosworth engine so I had to do a few,” Muniz said.

“Other than that, this is the first like true sports car race I’ve done. It is really cool.

“Like I said, I went in the NASCAR world because even though I’d never done it, I was like, ‘I want to go NASCAR driving,’ and all last year spent just learning.

“We did well. I exceeded my expectations of what it would be, but this is a whole different beast. But I like being in this world too, maybe I should try to go this route.”

When asked for specifics, Muniz pointed to further outings in Mustang Challenge as a key possibility, although he also noted longer-distance races would be “a lot of fun.”

“I was looking at the schedules and I was seeing how many of these Mustang Challenge races I could potentially do next year, because I think it’d be fun just to kind of run the series,” he said.

“It’s hard to be a one-off guy, it’s hard to come into the series and car when everyone else has been racing them and testing them and doing all that.

“When I want to give myself a fair chance, I got to do it more than just once. 

“The endurance racing stuff would be a lot of fun. I feel like there’d be so much pressure having teammates.

“When you get in, you’re like, ‘I don’t want to throw the throw the lead away.’ But no, I think it’d be it’d be a lot of fun for sure. So we’ll see.”