NASCAR driver 'mad' at himself after costly Michigan blunder

A NASCAR star has admitted making an embarrassing mistake during this weekend's Michigan race, which cost him dearly.

Saturday afternoon's Truck Series race saw a chaotic end involving multiple periods of overtime, which meant that it ended as the longest race by milage (278 miles) that the series has ever seen.

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Stewart Friesen ended up taking the win to snap a winless streak which stretched back to 2022, but he could've been pipped by one of the biggest names – who only has one top-ten finish to his name.

The big wrecks late in the race meant that Frankie Muniz was restarting in the second row and was poised for the best finish of his career, but he immediately slid backwards through the field because, as he admitted later, he had his truck in the wrong gear. He finished 14th.

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Muniz admits one-of-a-kind error

“I’ve never made this mistake and I hate to even admit it, but I had it in third gear,” Muniz told NBC’s Dustin Long. “I didn’t have it in the right gear. I was so excited to be in the second row, thinking like, ‘Yo, if I just keep my foot in this, we can get a top five (finish)'."

“I’m so mad at myself,” Muniz added. “But in the same sense, I’m thrilled for the team, thrilled for me just to have a good run. I was racing with the 98, I was racing with the 99, I was racing with really good trucks the whole race side by side.

“It’s what I needed just from a confidence [standpoint], to prove to myself that I can race in this series. We should have had a top 10, I’ll take the 14th, but easily could have had a top 10 there if I just didn’t make that mistake.”

Muniz concluded: “It feels good because the last couple weeks, I was like, ‘Why am I even trying?’ This makes me go, ‘Oh no no, keep going'.”

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