Andrew Comrie-Picard

Andrew Comrie-Picard (born (1971-04-28)April 28, 1971) is a Canadian race car driver, X Games athlete, stuntman, and TV personality.[1] At age 32, he left his career as an entertainment lawyer in New York City to pursue a career in race car driving.[2] He has since competed in the top levels of pro rally racing,[3] pro drifting,[4] desert off-road racing, short course off-road,[5] hillclimbing, and endurance circuit racing. Other than racing, he has hosted and produced several automotive TV shows, as well as coordinated and driven stunts in feature films and television.[6]

Andrew Comrie-Picard in-car hosting in a 2015 Ford F-150
(From left-to-right) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Andrew Comrie-Picard, and Greg Biffle, test Comrie-Picard's rally car at Team O'Neil Rally School 2014
Andrew Comrie-Picard in rally car during the 2014 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood
Andrew Comrie-Picard in a rally car during the 2014 Rally in the 100 Acre Wood

Competitions

He is a two-time Baja 1000 class winner and Pikes Peak International Hillclimb record-holder. He was one of the four drivers (with Tanner Foust, Travis Pastrana, and Ken Block) to compete at the first five X Games where Rally Car Racing was featured: X Games 12 (2006), X Games 13 (2007), X Games 14 (2008), X Games 15 (2009), and X Games 16 (2010). He also won the 2009 North American Rally Cup championship in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, and in 2014, the John Woodner Cup for First Overall in the American 2WD Championship.

Andrew Comrie-Picard has also won at numerous other competitions, including the 2006 Sno*Drift Rally in Michigan, the 2007 Rallye Perce-Neige in Quebec,[7] the 2009 Rally Colorado, and the 2010 Oregon Trail Rally. He also won the Targa Newfoundland road rally in the competition debut of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (2008), and the same rally again in 2012. However, not all was perfect, as he had his first mishap In 2010 at Pikes Peak, where he crashed at Engineer's Corner.[8]

In 2011, after several seasons of rallying in the top-level AWD category, he returned to rally competition in the 2WD category, campaigning for a manufacturer-backed 2011 Scion xD in selected Rally America events. He also drove a Mark IV Toyota Supra to second place in the Modern division at Targa Newfoundland after coming in sixth in the same car in 2010. He competed in the Baja 1000 desert race in 2011 and 2013 in a Class 10 Baja Challenge buggy for BFGoodrich; he and his team won the class in 2013. In 2012 and 2013, he continued to drive for Scion in Rally America competitions,[9] where he finished 2nd in the 2WD category championship in both seasons. He also competed in the 2012 and 2013 Pikes Peak International Hillclimb with a version of the Scion xD.

Coming off of the successful 3-year development program with the Scion Rally Team, in January 2014, he moved over to Ford Racing and Team O'Neil, driving a Ford Fiesta ST developed by Team O'Neil and M-Sport to compete for the 2014 Rally America 2WD Championship.[10] In July 2014, he secured the 2014 Rally America 2WD Championship with two events remaining, and in the 2014 season took five firsts, two seconds, and a third. He also secured seventeen consecutive podiums from 2012 to 2014, and for only the second time in a decade of Rally America history, put a 2nd car on the overall national podium.[11]

In July 2017, he returned to the American Rally Association Series, racing in the New England Forest Rally for the debut of the Ford Focus RS developed by Team O'Neil. The new car, which had competed for the first time at the Mount Washington Hill Climb, placed first in Production4WD class and fourth overall.[12]

Personal life

Early life

Comrie-Picard was raised on a small farm in Alberta, Canada. At an early age, he was interested in stunt driving, spending his childhood driving on dirt roads and fields.[13]

In 1992, he was made the head of Trinity College's secretive Episkopon society, which publicly satirized the college. However, in October 1991, Episkopon was accused of racism, sexism, and homophobia. When the college administration demanded that Episkopon draft a constitution with requirements to prevent this, he refused, resulting in the college severing all ties with the club.[14][15]

Current Life

Now, Comrie-Picard lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.[16] He spends his days re-living his love for wheeled vehicles as a member of the international GoodGear expedition. Starting in 2022, GoodGear expedition attempted to circumnavigate the globe with wheeled and amphibious vehicles without leaving the Earth's surface, passing through both poles. The expedition aimed to promote and utilize positive new technologies to advance the understanding and to contribute to the dataset for responsible management of the planet.

Television Debut

Comrie-Picard was a consulting producer and stunt coordinator in several seasons of Top Gear USA as well as on the History Channel. More recently, he appeared as a stunt driver in Tyler Perry, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlize Theron, Deadpool, and Fast and Furious films. He designed and tested an extreme stunt course for NetflixHyperdrive, and coached competitors worldwide in their attempts to complete it for television. He has coordinated stunts for Fastest Car (Netflix) and has performed stunts in several commercials and television shows, including NCIS New Orleans, for which he doubled Scott Bakula.[17]

TV Appearances

His acting and his hosting center around automobiles.

  • He has co-hosted the Canadian Rally Championship on the CHUM and A-Channel networks.
  • He has co-hosted Targa Newfoundland on Speed TV and Rogers Cable.
  • He has co-hosted the reality show "War of the Wheels" on Global.
  • He was an "extreme auto" correspondent for The New Drivers' Seat TV on CHUM and A-Channel.
  • He co-hosted a show for the Discovery Channel called "Ultimate Car Build off" with car designer Chip Foose and fabricator Lou Santiago.
  • He hosted a special called BattleCross on Speed TV in 2011 in which he set up a stunt course for two top extreme drivers to compete on.
  • He hosted a series of Yahoo! Autos videos in 2013.[18]
  • He hosted a GranTurismo launch segment in 2014.[19]
  • He hosted Ford's Truth About Trucks video series between 2014 and 2021.
  • In 2017, his auto build/stunt show "Car Saviors" aired on Discovery Channel.

References
  1. "Driver's Seat Correspondents". Archived from the original on 2009-05-03. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  2. Frye, Andy. "Lawyer Turned Stunt Driver Andrew Comrie-Picard Talks Rally Racing And Movie Stunts". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
  3. "Road warriors". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  4. "Dodge Motorsports". Archived from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
  5. "Driver Bio's". Archived from the original on 2009-06-11. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  6. "Andrew Comrie-Picard". IMDb. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
  7. "History - Rallye Perce-Neige Maniwaki Rally". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  8. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Rally America #2 crash at Pikes Peak 2010. YouTube.
  9. "This Turbocharged Scion xD Is Heading To A Rally Stage Near You". 24 January 2013.
  10. "Driving SportsACP Aims for 2WD Championship with Ford - Driving Sports". Archived from the original on 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
  11. "Andrew Comrie-Picard Wins Lake Superior Performance Rally 2WD Class | Rally America". Archived from the original on 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  12. "Andrew Comrie-Picard to Drive Team O'neil Motorsports Ford Focus Rs at New England Forest Rally". 14 July 2017.
  13. Hall, Emme. "Roadshow Asks: Andrew Comrie-Picard, how did you get to be a world-class stunt driver?". CNET. Retrieved 2023-02-18.
  14. Mitchell, Alanna (1992-09-05). "Is the student society at venerable Trinity College guilty of offensive human-rights abuses? Or is this another sanctimonious outcry from the prissy ranks of the politically correct?". The Globe and Mail: D1.
  15. Grant, Donald (1992-10-06). "Toronto Live: Links to Episkopon Cut". The Globe and Mail: 1.
  16. "Roadshow Asks: Andrew Comrie-Picard, how did you get to be a world-class stunt driver?". CNET. Retrieved 2023-09-20.
  17. "Andrew Comrie-Picard". IMDb.
  18. "Top five sleeper cars [video] | Open Road - Yahoo Autos". Archived from the original on 2014-12-05. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  19. "Sony Playstation Rebuilds Mario Andretti's First Car Love for Gran Turismo 6". 5 December 2013.
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