Frankie Muniz has a lot to prove ahead of his Daytona International Speedway stock car racing debut on Saturday.
The Golden Globe nominee, 37, told the Tampa Bay Times and other reporters Wednesday that he's "ready to prove it for my family," particularly son Mauz Mosley, 22 months, that he can take gold in his first race as a full-time ARCA Menards Series rookie.
"Everything I've done is in my past, right?" Muniz said. "But I wanted him to see me reaching for a dream or reaching for a goal and striving for that."
Although he acknowledged that he's "an old guy in the sport," Muniz said he's "ready" and has "got to do it now, and I've got to do it at a way quicker pace than most people do."
"I not only want to prove it to myself, I'm ready to prove it for my family and the amount of time we're dedicating to this on and off the track," he explained. "And, I don't know. Hopefully, we'll be in this world for years to come."
The F in Frankie is for FASTEST IN @DAYTONA PRACTICE@frankiemuniz | #Menards200 pic.twitter.com/1sBrAkea68
— ARCA Menards Series (@ARCA_Racing) February 16, 2023
The Malcolm in the Middle alum previously celebrated being the fastest in his first ARCA practice session at Daytona with a video shared Thursday on Twitter.
After welcoming his first child in March 2021 with wife Paige Price, whom he married a year before, Muniz recently said something similar to PEOPLE about chasing his longtime racing dreams. "It hit me when I had my son," he said last month.
"I want him to grow up seeing me reach for my dreams and work hard for something that I'm passionate about," added Muniz. "And the one world where I feel like I still have unfinished business was the racing world. So I'm going to go racing."
A longtime racecar enthusiast, Muniz explained that he "caught the bug of wanting to be a driver" after winning a 2004 tournament in Long Beach, Calif. He hadn't raced in more than a decade before training for his Daytona debut.
Muniz previously survived a serious car crash during a race in 2009. "My car flipped a bunch and I crashed into a wall," he told PEOPLE in 2017. "In the end, I broke my back, ankle, four ribs and my hand. My thumb was dangling by the skin."
