Jade Buford

Racing career

Jade Buford got his start behind the wheel at 18, racing Porsches while also working as an intern at the Porsche Driving School located at Barber Motorsports Park. His first professional race came in 2009 in the Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge, driving the No. 196 Mini Cooper S for RSR Motorsports in the ST class alongside Owen Trinkler. The following year, he switched to Racers Edge Motorsports and moved up to the GS class in the series, now called the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.

In 2012, Buford joined Multimatic Motorsports, co-driving the No. 71 Aston Martin Vantage with Tõnis Kasemets to an 11th-place finish in GS. The next season, he teamed up with Scott Maxwell in Multimatic's No. 55 car and set a series record by taking seven pole positions. They stayed together through 2014. For 2015, his co-driver was sixteen-year-old Austin Cindric, who later said Buford was someone he could lean on early in his career; the pair won together at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Buford moved to the Pirelli World Challenge GTS class in 2016 with Racers Edge, sweeping the weekend at Barber Motorsports Park from the pole and later winning at Lime Rock Park after crashes took out the leaders and a cleanup truck interfered with another competitor. In 2017, he ran two Sports Car Challenge races with Multimatic and returned to Pirelli World Challenge GTS Pro with Racers Edge, winning both races at Mosport. The next year, Buford joined PF Racing for the PWC season.

At Circuit of the Americas, he and Maxwell claimed the Mustang GT4's first victory by passing pole-sitter Harry Gottsacker during pit stops; Buford noted that some cars had more outright speed, but they executed the perfect race. He added a second win that year at Watkins Glen International, beating Ian James by just .208 seconds.

Did You Know?

• At 16 years old, Austin Cindric was Buford's co-driver in 2015, and Cindric described Buford as 'someone to lean on' early in his career.
• He is a graduate of Auburn University.