Chris Pedersen (born May 22, 1963) is an American musician, actor, and NASCAR racer.
He was the lead guitarist and wrote original material with the punk rock band The Dumps in Santa Barbara, CA 1980–81.
He played a punk rocker in Suburbia, and also appeared in Platoon, Night of the Comet and Point Break among others.
[citation needed] He began to distance himself from the film industry in the early 1990s, focusing instead on cars and technology.
He founded and led a self-funded DARPA Grand Challenge team, the "AI Motorvators", whose V8-powered "IT Came From The Garage" finished in the semi-finals in 2004 and 2005; they were featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel show Monster Garage.