Marching Royal Dukes to perform national anthem at NASCAR race

They’ve played in NFL stadiums, at gubernatorial and presidential inaugurations, in marquee holiday parades in New York City and London, outside the Vatican, and even in a palace as guests of the Grimaldi royal family of Monaco.

But on Sunday, Nov. 1, the Marching Royal Dukes will mark time in a very different type of venue — Martinsville Speedway, where the band will perform the national anthem prior to the start of the Xfinity 500 NASCAR Cup Series race.

The MRDs were chosen for the occasion on the strength of their reputation as “Virginia’s Finest” and one of the best marching bands in the country, said W. Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway. Campbell’s daughter, Alayna (’22), is a JMU alumna and a former saxophone player in the MRDs. “They’re one of the best bands I’ve ever heard,” he said.

Because the race takes place in the fall, Campbell likes to invite college marching bands to perform the national anthem. He first reached out to Scott Rikkers, director of the Marching Royal Dukes, a few years ago, but Homecoming weekend and the band’s performance schedule, which includes some away football games on Saturdays, prevented the MRDs from taking part. But this year, with the Dukes playing at home on Thursday night the week of the race, the band was free to make the weekend trip.

Dr. Amy Birdsong (’01, ’23DMA), who is serving as interim director of the MRDs while Rikkers is on medical leave, received the invitation from Campbell on Aug. 3 — only a week into her interim role.

“It was almost too good to be true,” she said. “It’s very expensive for the MRDs to travel when you consider the cost of 10 charter buses and feeding several hundred students. And the schedule had been announced. I prefer not to add anything once our students commit to the season they signed up for.”

But after talking with Campbell, the opportunity to perform live in front of 40,000 fans hailing from every state in the country and a TV audience of more than 2 million viewers worldwide was too good to pass up. Birdsong said that kind of exposure is second only to when the band has performed during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

Then there’s the fact that Martinsville Speedway is covering their transportation expenses and providing a lunch on site. Organizers are even making grandstand tickets available for band members who want to stay for the race.

“I called my [academic unit head] and asked, ‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t say yes?’” Birdsong said. “And he was like, ‘I think the university will love this kind of publicity.’”

Shortly before the race begins at 2 p.m., the band will march down the track’s main straightaway, fan out near the start-finish line and turn toward the grandstands. Although it will play a standard marching-band version of The Star-Spangled Banner, the importance of the song and the ritual are not lost on Birdsong. “It’s a captive audience of patriotic fans, many of whom will be singing along,” she said. Fireworks and a military flyover are scheduled to cap off the performance.

Approximately 375 of the MRD’s 500 members will be participating, Birdsong said. The group, mostly woodwind and brass players and percussionists, will leave Harrisonburg in the early morning hours on Nov 1. For those students who choose not to stay for the race, buses will carry them back to campus in the late afternoon.

Unfortunately, Breanna Boyd, a sophomore Music Education major from Martinsville, Virginia, is among the MRD members who will not be going on the trip because she is also in the Wind Symphony, which will be performing that day as part of the 2026 Contemporary Music Festival at JMU. But she said she is excited for the band to play in her hometown.

“Martinsville-Henry County is such a nice community, and JMU is such a nice community. It’s cool that my two worlds will collide,” she said.

Boyd is participating vicariously. As a student in Birdsong’s Marching Band Procedures class this semester, she and her fellow future band directors are using the trip as a case study in logistics. “We’re in charge of planning most of it — with some limitations,” she said.

The Xfinity 500 is the penultimate race in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship, “so the stakes are very high and it receives an enormous amount of attention,” Campbell said. Martinsville Speedway is considered a short track — about a half-mile in length — and a fan favorite on the circuit for many years.