Andy Pilgrim Born In Nottingham, England - August 18, 1956

August 18, 1956

Andy Pilgrim

(Photo;andypilgrim.com)

Born in Nottingham, England.

Pilgrim is a British-born racing driver, who became a United States citizen in 1998. He currently resides in Boca Raton, Florida.

He began racing an IMSA Renault Cup Renault Alliance in the 1980s. His professional racing began in 1996 when he made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut. He joined the Chevrolet Corvette factory team in 1999. In 2001 he was selected as teammate for Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Kelly Collins in the 24 Hours of Daytona and the team finished second in class. He also won the 2001 Petit Le Mans. After the 24 Hours of Daytona, Dale Earnhardt Sr. promised to someday put Pilgrim in a NASCAR stock-car, a promise he was unable to fulfill due to his death a few weeks later during the 2001 Daytona 500. However Pilgrim  made his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut in 2011 at Infineon driving the 46 Car for Whitney Motorsports, where he finished 26th.

He left the Corvette program in 2004 but stayed with General Motors, driving for the winning team at the Daytona 24 in a Doran-Pontiac and spending the rest of the season driving for the new Cadillac CTS-V factory team in the SPEED World Challenge GT Series. The following year Pilgrim won the driver's championship in that series in his CTS-V. Staying with the team, he finished 3rd and 2nd in the series in 2006 and 2007.

In 2007 he also made his NASCAR Busch Series debut, driving two road course races for Earnhardt, Jr.'s JR Motorsports team. The purpose of the ride was to fulfill Dale Earnhardt's promise to Pilgrim. One of them was at Montreal in the inaugural NAPA 200 in which he almost won but had run out of gas on a restart losing the race, and barely avoided Marcos Ambrose who was crashing as a result of being tapped by Robby Gordon. Pilgrim's best finish in the Busch series is 15th in both races.

In 2008 he continued to drive the SPEED World Challenge CTS-V, although it is now a privateer team rather than a factory program, sponsored by Remington. In 2009, Pilgrim joined Randy Pobst as part of the K-Pax team, campaigning the Volvo S60 in the SPEED World Challenge. He resulted fourth in the drivers standings in 2009 and 2010.

Pilgrim made his NASCAR Sprint Cup debut in 2011 at Infineon driving the 46 Car for Whitney Motorsports, where he finished 26th.

Also in 2011, Pilgrim rejoined GM in World Challenge driving the factory Cadillac CTS-V Coupe alongside Johnny O'Connell. He was fifth in 2011, runner-up in 2012, third in 2013 and fourth in 2014.

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