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On Feb. 18, 2001, Frankie Muniz was all set and ready for the ride of his life around the Daytona International Speedway. The 15-year-old actor who had just reached the apex of his fame as the titular character in the sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" was to ride in the pace car for the 2001 Daytona 500, something that was only part of a dream experience for the young race fan.

Before going to watch the race from Ken Schrader's pit box, Muniz had his M&M's Racing jacket signed by Schrader, Sterling Marlin and the one and only Dale Earnhardt -- who told him on pit road how much he loved his show and how it had brought him and his daughter closer together.

On the final lap, those three drivers would enter Turn 3 racing each other for third when contact between Earnhardt and Marlin sent Earnhardt's car up the track, into Schrader's path, and into the outside wall -- killing the incomparable Intimidator and rocking NASCAR to its core. That race in Daytona and its ending become an unforgettable part of Muniz's life.

As fate would have it, that part of Muniz's life will be directly in his hands as he takes on his next chapter.

CGR-005, the chassis of the car that Sterling Marlin drove in the 2001 Daytona 500, is now the chassis of the car that Muniz will drive when he makes his ARCA Menards Series debut next month at Daytona. Now 37, Muniz was recently hired as the full-time driver of Rette Jones Racing's No. 30 Ford, resuming his racing career after over a dozen years since he last raced full-time driving open-wheel cars in the Atlantic Championship.

For Muniz, his entry into ARCA is the opening bell of, hopefully, an intentional ascent up NASCAR's ladder system, which begins in the Midwest-based national touring series.

Speaking to CBS Sports, Muniz shared that he was supposed to run the full ARCA season in 2022, but his plans to do so were foiled when sponsorship plans fell through. That turned into a blessing for Muniz, though, as it allowed him to further hone his stock car racing craft on the West Coast's pre-eminent short tracks like Irwindale, Kern County and All-American Speedway.

"I have a lot of racing experience, but in open wheel cars, on road and street tracks," Muniz told CBS Sports. "I'm not saying you can't compare the two, because obviously I have the mental ability to be a race car driver, I understand car control. But the race craft is different; everything about it is just different. So I learned a lot doing the late model races in the SPEARS Racing League Southwest Tour and racing for the Irwindale championship."

In transitioning from actor to racer, Muniz is following a path that others, from Paul Newman to Patrick Dempsey, have already traversed. Part of that path includes ingraining himself into the culture of racing and its inner circle, something that he has already put significant effort into. At last year's NASCAR All-Star Race, Muniz served as a member of Fox Sports' broadcasting crew. Later that year, Muniz participated alongside many Cup Series drivers in Corey LaJoie's Charity Kickball Klassic.

It all has helped him make allies in the garage area, which include LaJoie and Noah Gragson. It's also helped soothe his fears of not being taken seriously as a race car driver, of being viewed as an outsider or an amateur doing for a lark what others do for a living.

"People know me as an actor, people maybe know that I raced in the past. But to really be going into the ARCA Series or anything above, you're really only racing against serious drivers," Muniz said. "People who have been doing it for a long time and are trying to make a living from it. So I was afraid that people wouldn't take it seriously, and I still am. I know that I've got to prove (myself) to them on the track.

"Talk is one thing. Saying I want to be there is one thing. Even going out on track, and if I was running really slow and at the back, it's another thing. But being competitive and earning the respect of the drivers is something that I'm really hoping happens this year."

Muniz's stock car racing aspirations are coming to fruition at an interesting point in his life. It has been 17 years since "Malcolm in the Middle" ended. Many of Muniz's competitors in ARCA this year will be teenagers themselves -- ones who were likely far too young to remember the hit show or recall when Muniz was at the height of his acting career.

You may think that being further away from that height would make pursuing a racing career on his own terms easier for Muniz. But when his ARCA ride was announced, word quickly spread and Muniz was put under a microscope -- a reminder that his past will always follow him, for better or for worse.

"I'm fortunate at 37 years old to be able to take a step back, look at all the things I've done in my life," Muniz said. "I've been an actor, I've raced cars in the past, I was a drummer, I owned a bunch of businesses, owned an olive oil company. I've done a lot of things. But in that sense, I am choosing to be here right now. I want this, and I'm gonna work really, really hard for it.

"... I know that I did feel a lot of pressure (testing at Daytona) after we made the announcement. I didn't expect it to kind of go as wide as it did, of people commenting and picking up the story. I really didn't. I didn't know what to expect.

What Muniz has going for him is that he has aligned himself with a reputable team led by ARCA championship-winning crew chief Mark Rette and driver Terry Jones, whose racing resume includes a second-place finish at Daytona in 2017. During a mid-January test at Daytona, the focus of Muniz and his team was to establish their baseline and make it so that their car could run well by itself -- and, by extension, run well in the draft.

Muniz would end up sixth-fastest on the first day of testing, 10th overall by the end of the two day test. He left Daytona with a feeling of comfort and confidence that he can accomplish something that leaves no doubt that he can run up front.

"We left going –- or in my head, maybe I shouldn't say this out loud, but I was like, 'I can win it. I can win this race.' And that's a pretty good feeling going into the race weekend, having the confidence to feel like, 'We belong there, we belong up front,'" Muniz said.