Bedard joined Car and Driver in 1967 as a staff member and quickly became one of the magazine's most prominent voices. His willingness to race the cars his publication wrote about set him apart from purely desk-bound automotive journalists, and Car and Driver actively supported and promoted his competitive outings as both editorial content and marketing.
In the early 1970s, Car and Driver organised a series of Sports Car Club of America-sanctioned showroom stock sedan races as a reader challenge. In the Car and Driver SS/Sedan Challenge II, Bedard finished first driving the magazine's own Opel 1900 sedan. In the SS/Sedan Challenge III in 1974, he won the tie-breaker race in a 1973 Chevrolet Vega GT, beating out 31 other competitors in production-specification cars. These victories demonstrated genuine racecraft rather than the amateur participation they might have appeared to represent.
In 1973 Bedard drove a Mazda RX-2 to victory in an IMSA RS race at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, recording what is believed to be the first racing victory by a Wankel rotary-engined car in the United States. The same car also took a pole position at Pocono Raceway's road course, though the race ended in retirement with a blown clutch at the start.
Bedard attempted to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1981 and 1982 without success. At the age of 41 he finally made the field in 1983, finishing 30th after crashing in turn four on lap 25. He also raced at the 1983 Michigan 500, where he spun avoiding wreckage from Gordon Johncock's broken car while race leader Tom Sneva was bearing down on the scene.
After qualifying again in 1984, Bedard was involved in a significant accident on lap 59. His car spun exiting turn three, struck the inside guardrail, and flipped three times. Bedard suffered a concussion and a broken jaw. The crash drew criticism in the national press, with Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray writing that qualifying for a handful of laps on an empty track did not constitute preparation for race day. Bedard retired from racing after the 1984 accident.
Bedard continued writing for Car and Driver after retiring from competition, maintaining his regular column for another 25 years. After nearly 42 consecutive years with the publication he announced in his column in the August 2009 issue that he was leaving the magazine, closing one of the longest continuous tenures in American automotive journalism.
Bedard occupies an unusual position in American motorsport: a journalist who raced seriously enough to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 twice in his forties, and a racer whose writing career outlasted and ultimately defined his public profile. His combination of literary voice and track experience influenced the tradition of journalist-racers that Car and Driver has cultivated across generations.