Andrew Comrie-Picard

Andrew Comrie-Picard (born April 28, 1971) is an X Games athlete,^[1] professional race car driver, stunt driver, automotive journalist, and TV personality.^[2] He left a career as a New York City entertainment lawyer to pursue his passion for racing. He has won events in Europe and North America, including the 2006 Sno*Drift Rally in Michigan,^[3] the 2007 Rallye Perce-Neige in Quebec,^[4] the 2009 Rally Colorado, and the 2010 Oregon Trail Rally. In 2008 he won outright the Modern division of the Targa Newfoundland road race in the competition debut of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. He won the 2009 North American Rally Cup championship overall in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX.

Comrie-Picard competed in the inaugural rally car event at X Games 12 in 2006, and competed again at X Games 13 in 2007, X Games 14 in 2008, X Games 15 in 2009, and X Games 16 in 2010, making him one of four drivers (with Tanner Foust, Travis Pastrana, and Ken Block) to compete at the first five X Games where Rally Car Racing was featured. At X Games 16 he won the bronze medal in Rally Car Racing.

He also has raced off-road trucks^[5] and in 2010 he competed in drifting, driving the Dodge Motorsports BFGoodrich Samuel Hubinette Racing Dodge Viper.^[6] Also in 2010, he entered the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb event where he crashed his Mitsubishi at Engineer's Corner.^[7] In 2011, after several seasons of rallying in the top-level AWD category, Comrie-Picard returned to rally competition in the 2WD category, campaigning a 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 is slated to compete on the Baja 1000 desert race in 2011 in a Baja Challenge buggy for BFGoodrich.

Unusual for an automotive expert, he has five university degrees, including a B.A. from The University of Trinity College (University of Toronto), an M.A. from Trinity College, Oxford, and MBA and LL.B. (law) degrees from McGill University. He was a competitive rower at both Oxford and McGill.

In 1992 Comrie-Picard was appointed the Scribe, or head, of the Episkopon society at Trinity College, Toronto. Comrie-Picard took the society underground by disassociating with the College in 1992, after the administration demanded that Episkopon develop a constitution and Comrie-Picard refused. He told the Globe and Mail newspaper, "It's humour."^[8]

He is a wine expert who worked in Bordeaux, France, ran the wine societies at the University of Toronto and Oxford University, and competed on the Oxford University Blind Winetasting team.

His acting and television hosting centres on automobiles: he has co-hosted the Canadian Rally Championship on the CHUM and A-Channel networks, Targa Newfoundland on SpeedTV and Rogers Cable, hosted the reality show "War of the Wheels" on Global Television, and was an "extreme auto" correspondent for The New Drivers' Seat TV on CHUM and A-Channel. He co-hosted with car designer Chip Foose and fabricator Lou Santiago a show for the Discovery Channel called "Ultimate Car Buildoff". Ten episodes aired in the summer of 2010. Comrie-Picard has hosted a pilot for a new show called BattleXross on SpeedTV in which he sets up a stunt course for two top extreme drivers to compete on. The pilot is expected to air in late 2011. Comrie-Picard lives in Los Angeles and is a Consulting Producer on Top Gear USA on the History Channel.

Canadian Rally Championship Results

He currently ranks 21st in lifetime points, with 1340pts.^[9]

Complete Rally America results

References

1. ^ http://espn.go.com/action/athletes/bio?id=40136
2. ^ http://www.driversseattv.com/bio_corr.html
3. ^ http://www.subaru-msm.com/global/local2006/ranc/1.html
4. ^ http://www.rallyeperceneige.com/en/historique_en.asp
5. ^ http://www.superlitechampionship.com/Testimonials.html
6. ^ http://www.dodgemotorsports.com/#/drivers
7. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=601-6eKQ99U
8. ^ Mitchell, Alanna, "The tumult over Episkopon 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?" Globe and Mail, September 05, 1992, p. D5.
9. ^ http://www.rallyracingnews.com/cars/cnddrvlt-08.html