Andrew Comrie-Picard

Andrew Comrie-Picard (born ) is a Canadian race car driver, X Games athlete, stuntman, and TV personality. At age 32, he left his career as an entertainment lawyer in New York City to pursue a career in race driving. He has since competed at the top levels of pro rally racing pro drifting desert off-road racing, short course off-road, 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.

Early life and education

Comrie-Picard grew up 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.

In 1992, he was made the head of Trinity College's secretive Episkopon society, which publicly satirized the college. 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.

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 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.

He won at the 2006 Sno*Drift Rally in Michigan, 2007 Rallye Perce-Neige in Quebec, 2009 Rally Colorado, 2010 Oregon Trail Rally. He also won the Targa Newfoundland road rally in the competition debut of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (2008) and again in 2012. In 2010 at Pikes Peak, he crashed at Engineer's Corner.

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 competition, finishing 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 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. 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.

In July 2017, he returned to rally competition in the American Rally Association Series New England Forest Rally for the gravel rally 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.

Personal life

He is a member of the international GoodGear expedition that will attempt to circumnavigate the globe with wheeled and amphibious vehicles without leaving the Earth's surface, passing through both poles, starting in 2022. The expedition aims to promote and utilize positive new technologies to advance the understanding and to contribute to the dataset for responsible management of the planet.

Comrie-Picard lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.

Stunts

Comrie-Picard was a consulting producer and stunt coordinator in several seasons of Top Gear USA on the History Channel and appeared as a stunt driver in recent Tyler Perry, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlize Theron, Deadpool, and Fast and Furious films. He designed and tested an extreme stunt course for Netflix Hyperdrive, 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.

In television

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 SpeedTV 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 Buildoff" with car designer Chip Foose and fabricator Lou Santiago.
* He hosted a special called BattleXross on SpeedTV 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.
* He hosted a GranTurismo launch segment in 2014.
* 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

External links

Official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Comrie-Picard, Andrew
Canadian television sportscasters
Canadian rally drivers
Canadian lawyers
Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College (Canada) alumni
1971 births
Living people
Racing drivers from Alberta