Barton Sandy

Barton Sandy (born April 16, 1987 in Ipswich, Queensland) is an Australian racing driver. He will compete in the ARLA Elite Series in 2012 for his father, Rudy Sandy. He is also running for BK Racing, a independent trophy team in the 2012 TM Master Cup series.

Early Life
Barton played rugby league for a local club when he was 6 until he was 14, then he took up go-karts. Sandy won 2 local championships at Queensland Raceway and won the Queensland state go-karts championship in 2005.

Australian Career
Sandy decided to race Formula 3 after go-karts in 2006 and finished 2nd in his 1st ever season. Sandy raced in V8 Utes in 2007 for his father. After being in a massive incident in turn 8 at the Adelaide street circuit, Sandy capitalised on the results from Adelaide and finished 6th including having race 2 race wins at Surfers Paradise and Phillip Island respectively. Sandy then won the 2008 championship winning 4 round wins at Eastern Creek, Queensland, Bathurst and Oran Park. Sandy moved up to the V8 Development series in 2009, finishing 2nd with 4 race wins. Sandy paired up with fellow friend and driver Rick Bennett for the L&H 500 at Phillip Island and the biggest race in Australia, the Bathurst 1000. After finishing 20th, 5 laps down at Phillip Island, Bennett crashed the car at Bathurst at skyline after 84 laps. The turning point of Sandy's career was when he got in a pit lane brawl after race 2 of the Telstra Sydney 500 development race, the final race of the season. Sandy was in the lead of the championship by 5 points at the time. Sandy got turned by fellow driver Brian Jordan in turn 1, causing Sandy to hit the wall and force him out of the race. After the race Sandy and Jordan got in a fight which included pit crews and officials. Owners of V8 Supercars were afraid of signing Sandy for the 2010 season because of possible maturity problems. Sandy's career in Australia was at a massive standstill.

1st American stint
Sandy took his father's money to America, where he wanted to get a ride somewhere. ARLA had tryouts for numerous rides, but Sandy ended up being the only one getting the 99 car. Sandy didn't last long in the car because of financial issues between him and his family and the ride was given to Phillip Borland.

After the 1st stint
Sandy's dad, Rudy Sandy had financial problems with his leading computer shops based all around Queensland, and his studio so his father had no money to pay to the 99 car. Sandy went back to Australia to help his dad's business to get it under control. In September 2011 his dad's business got 5 major shares and the business was out of debt.

2nd stint in the USA
Sandy drove in VART for a few races, until his father, Rudy Sandy, was able to afford an ARLA ride for Sandy again, so he came back to ARLA for the 2012 season. Sandy's had a difficult season getting used to ARLA cars plus short tracks. His best finish was 6th at Quincy.

TMMC
Sandy tried his luck at running TMMC in 2011 but failing to qualify. Sandy took the car to auction to use in Dash Cup won by Pedro Lopez who used to field the 05 car for Jakob Hughes. Sandy got a contract offer from BKR racing to run for independent trophy, Sandy said it will be a dream come true to run in his home state of Queensland against some of the best drivers in the world. Sandy kept his nose clean at Road Atlanta and finished 16th, well clear of fellow Australian and teammate, Troy Adams, who is less experienced than Sandy at racing. Sandy was supposed to run Sweden but he ran Brands Hatch instead to test the car out more instead of inexperienced Troy Adams. He got in a wreck early in it. Sandy ran the world class Karjala Grand Prix but finished 19th and didn't make the main race. He showed some promise at Calder Park but he got caught up in a wreck with Adrien Devereux and Ben Atkins. At his home track in the round of Queensland he couldn't get on strategy with the other drivers also as well as being off the pace.

Trivia
Barton's full name is Barton Bungaree-Sandy, but he would rather the commentators not have a hard time at saying his full name. Barton's father Rudy owns a business called Sandy Electronics has 35 stores across Australia. 1st Indigenous Australian to race in ARLA and TMMC. Sandy is a pay driver.