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Andrew Comrie-Picard

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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

Andrew Comrie-Picard (born (1971-04-28)April 28, 1971) is a Canadian race car driver, X Games athlete, stuntman, and TV personality.[1] He has competed in rally racing,[2]drifting,[3] desert off-road racing, short course off-road racing,[4] hillclimbing, and endurance circuit racing. He has also hosted and produced several automotive TV shows, as well as coordinated and driven stunts in feature films and television.[5]

Competitions

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Comrie-Picard 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.[citation needed]

Other competitions he has won during his career include the 2006 Sno*Drift Rally in Michigan, the 2007 Rallye Perce-Neige in Quebec,[6] the 2009 Rally Colorado, and the 2010 Oregon Trail Rally. He also won the Targa Newfoundland road rally in 2008 and 2012 with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X in its competition debut. When competing in 2010 at Pikes Peak, he suffered a crash at the track's "Engineer's Corner."[7]

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Comrie-Picard competed in the two-wheel drive (2WD) category for the 2011 season after having previously competed in all-wheel drive (AWD) vehicles. He drove a manufacturer-backed 2011 Scion xD in selected Rally America events, and 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 race in 2013. In 2012 and 2013, he continued to drive for Scion in Rally America competitions,[8] 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.[citation needed]

Coming off of the successful 3-year development program with the Scion Rally Team, in January 2014, he switched to Ford Racing and Team O'Neil, driving a Ford Fiesta ST developed by Team O'Neil and M-Sport to compete in the 2014 Rally America 2WD Championship.[9] He secured the 2014 Rally America 2WD Championship with two races remaining, and in the 2014 season earned five firsts, two seconds, and a third. He also secured seventeen consecutive podiums from 2012 to 2014 and put a second car on the overall national podium, making it the second time in the decade that a racer put a second car on the Rally America overall national podium.[10]

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.[11]

Personal life

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Early life

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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.[12] After five university degrees, including an MA in Political Economy from Oxford University, he left his career as an entertainment lawyer in New York City to pursue a career in race car driving.[13]

Current life

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Comrie-Picard lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.[14] He is a main team member of the Transglobal Car Expedition by GoodGear, an international expedition that is circumnavigating the globe with wheeled and amphibious vehicles without leaving the Earth's surface, passing over both geographic poles. The expedition is collecting scientific data on ice thickness, cosmic ray penetration, and global light pollution throughout their route, and aim to promote and utilize positive new technologies and responsible eco-management.[needs update]

Television work

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Comrie-Picard was a consulting producer and stunt coordinator for several seasons of Top Gear USA and the History Channel. More recently, he has appeared as a stunt driver in films starring Tyler Perry, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charlize Theron, as well as the Deadpool and Fast and Furious film series. He designed and tested an extreme stunt course for Netflix's show Hyperdrive, and coached competitors worldwide in their attempts to complete it for television. He has coordinated stunts for Fastest Car on Netflix and has performed stunts in several commercials and television shows, including NCIS New Orleans, for which he doubled Scott Bakula.[15]

TV appearances

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His acting and hosting career 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.[16]
  • He hosted a GranTurismo launch segment in 2014.[17]
  • 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

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  1. ^ "Driver's Seat Correspondents". Archived from the original on 2009-05-03. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  2. ^ "Road warriors". Detroit Metro Times. Retrieved 2021-05-22.
  3. ^ "Dodge Motorsports". Archived from the original on 2010-05-29. Retrieved 2010-05-27.
  4. ^ "Driver Bio's". Archived from the original on 2009-06-11. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  5. ^ "Andrew Comrie-Picard". IMDb. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
  6. ^ "History - Rallye Perce-Neige Maniwaki Rally". Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2009-08-25.
  7. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Rally America #2 crash at Pikes Peak 2010. YouTube.
  8. ^ "This Turbocharged Scion xD Is Heading To A Rally Stage Near You". 24 January 2013.
  9. ^ "Driving SportsACP Aims for 2WD Championship with Ford - Driving Sports". Archived from the original on 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
  10. ^ "Andrew Comrie-Picard Wins Lake Superior Performance Rally 2WD Class | Rally America". Archived from the original on 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2014-11-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  11. ^ "Andrew Comrie-Picard to Drive Team O'neil Motorsports Ford Focus Rs at New England Forest Rally". 14 July 2017.
  12. ^ Hall, Emme. "Roadshow Asks: Andrew Comrie-Picard, how did you get to be a world-class stunt driver?". CNET. Retrieved 2023-02-18.
  13. ^ Frye, Andy. "Lawyer Turned Stunt Driver Andrew Comrie-Picard Talks Rally Racing And Movie Stunts". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
  14. ^ "Roadshow Asks: Andrew Comrie-Picard, how did you get to be a world-class stunt driver?". CNET. Retrieved 2023-09-20.
  15. ^ "Andrew Comrie-Picard". IMDb.
  16. ^ "Top five sleeper cars [video] | Open Road - Yahoo Autos". Archived from the original on 2014-12-05. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  17. ^ "Sony Playstation Rebuilds Mario Andretti's First Car Love for Gran Turismo 6". 5 December 2013.
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