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Skyler Whitfield and the sound of speed

Musician embraces racing in his art

By Dan Hodgdon

Skyler Whitfield makes his living playing music. A lot of it. He takes the stage approximately 225 times each year, playing everything from Southern rock to country, bluegrass, blues and traditional Irish tunes. He performs at bars and clubs in the Southeast, including many near his home in Socastee, South Carolina, just south of Myrtle Beach. He lives there with his fiancée, Bethany, and newborn son, Wyatt. But not only is he a fixture on the Grand Strand, he is also a lifelong race fan and sings "The Star Spangled Banner” before dozens of races every season.

Skyler Whitfield sings the national anthem before a SMART Modified race at South Boston Speedway.

Whitfield sees a parallel between his style of music and motorsports, particularly in the hard-nosed, hard-scrabble world of short track racing.

“They're both very adrenaline-fueled,” he says at Florence Motor Speedway in late November, just before the track’s year-ending South Carolina 400. “Racing is so intensely emotional, and what draws us all to this is the passion that these guys have. It’s the same with music, I think. There's just so much adrenaline with a crowd, loud noise, good times and people cracking beers. It’s an entire weekend to just let loose, whether it's a concert or race weekend.”

Whitfield looks every bit the part of a Southern rocker. His long reddish-blonde hair is usually pushed back with a bandana. He has a full beard, and his attire often features boots, blue jeans and a black T-shirt. At the track, he might sport a shirt with legendary builder and mechanic Smokey Yunick’s black-and-gold No. 13, or a vintage Winston Cup jacket. It’s a look that has become a brand, but also one that comes naturally.

He is a product of both the working class and a family with deep ties to the arts. The result is Whitfield’s unique talent, storytelling abilities and understanding of how a sound can represent a region. A sport. And a feeling.

“I’m kind of a mixed bird, man,” he says.

Whitfield performs wearing a Lennie Pond shirt. His father was friends with the Virginia racer.

Whitfield was born on February 1, 1994, to parents Dan and Rosina. He lived in York, Pennsylvania, when he was a small child. His father worked at Harley-Davidson, test rode at the factory and taught a motorcycle mechanics program at YTI Career Institute. However, Dan Whitfield’s side of the family is from the Colonial Heights area of Virginia, south of Richmond. He was friends with the late racer Lennie Pond and also knew “The Clown Prince of Racing,” Joe Weatherly. He passed on his love of racing to his son, and Skyler believes his first race was likely at Watkins Glen, with his parents carrying him.

When he was about 7 years old, Skyler and his family relocated to Greensboro, North Carolina, and he grew up in a region close to Bowman Gray Stadium, as well as Ace, Caraway and Martinsville speedways.

One of his earliest racing memories is the rain-shortened 1997 Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Jeff Gordon won the race, who was Whitfield’s favorite driver since both his half-brothers worked at DuPont in Hopewell, Virginia, and still do today.

“He was my Cup driver; I like good old boy stuff, but Jeff’s not a good old boy,” Whitfield says with a laugh.

Whitfield’s Jeff Gordon fandom makes perfect sense for the family ties, but it is also indicative of his later path. He reveres history and tradition but also fosters a deep appreciation for the influence of outsiders.

Whitfield performs more than 200 times each year. (Dan Hodgdon photo)

Whitfield’s mother worked as a theater director, his grandfather was a choral conductor, and he has cousins who are professional piano players. As a result, he grew up around music, singing in church and performing in school plays. He developed a love for all kinds of music, even delving into classical from time to time. Many of his family members in the arts scene hail from the Washington, D.C. area.

“I was on stage pretty early doing children's plays and church twice a week on Wednesday and Sunday,” he says. “I have a lot of different backgrounds, but there’s just something about traditional country and blues, it’s like the land's talking back to you. I always was fascinated with that, and we were close to Galax, Virginia, that's like the capital of bluegrass. We’d get the radio station [WBRF] 98.1. It’s still going and was a big part of my music-listening influence.”

After graduating from Northwest Guilford High School, he says he gave it “the old college try.” He took music classes at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, learning as much as he could on a limited budget.

Although his ultimate goal is national touring and signing to a label, he is fiercely independent and understands the potential pitfalls of the Nashville scene.

Skyler Whitfield on the marquee at The Knot at Windy Hill in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. (Dan Hodgdon photo)

He saw potential in the Carolinas, where “there’s not a million people trying to do the exact same thing” as in Nashville.

“In this region there are a lot of good little venues,” he says. “I mean I'm not playing the Ryman, but there are a lot of fun places lakeside, beachside, in the mountains. We have great landscape in the Carolinas and really good live music. There's a lot of talent around the Carolinas, and people sleep on it, until they get someone like Luke Combs and they're like, ‘Wow, that’s awesome.’”

Whitfield currently plays shows as a solo artist, with a band under his own name, and is a member of another outfit known as Root 65. The latter leans more toward traditional bluegrass and country. Regardless of the act, Whitfield’s outgoing demeanor is reflected in his engaging stage presence.

“I’m just trying to encourage a good time, that’s really what I’m about,” he says.

His 2023 debut album, “Mason,” features his unique sound and appeals to fans ranging from the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd to Eric Church and contemporary South Carolina bluesman Marcus King. Whitfield also recently spent three days at Atlantic Coast Recording Studio laying down new material.

Racing is a common theme in his work and “Mason” features two motorsports-focused tunes.

Whitfield and a friend during the 2025 Cook Out Clash weekend at Bowman Gray Stadium.

The original “Bowman Gray” is a story of an old-school Street Stock competitor. It represents the nostalgia for racers with dirt under their fingernails and plenty of battle scars. It is a composite of several racers Whitfield has known in his life.

“[It’s] just kind of a loose caricature of guys I knew that were racing [when I was] growing up that didn't have a lot of resources, that worked out of their shed, worked under the shade of their tree,” he says. “It's a combination of a few people I could think of, and I wanted to sort of paint what it looked like.”

Meanwhile, “The Ballad of Wendell Scott” is a cover of the upbeat Mojo Nixon song retelling the tale of the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Premier Series race. Here, Whitfield’s understanding of the South is clear-eyed. He delves into the story of the driver who never got to celebrate his win at Jacksonville (Florida) Speedway in 1963, by all accounts primarily because the promoter didn’t want him kissing the track’s white beauty queen.

“Could you imagine the things he had to deal with back then?” Whitfield says. “Winning when everybody didn't want him to. So just overcoming odds drew me to that song.”

Incidentally, Scott was from Virginia, just as much of Whitfield’s family is, deepening his appreciation for the impressive racer.

Skyler Whitfield performs the national anthem before the 2025 South Carolina 400 at Florence Motor Speedway. (Dan Hodgdon photo)

Whitfield is a fan of many sports, and in college he was part of a sports tourism program, which led to him interviewing summer league college baseball players. He eventually wrote for Race22.com and soon got behind the microphone in the booth, announcing races at his beloved Florence and other area tracks. He also serves as a pit reporter for Racing America during the New Year’s Bash at Dillon Motor Speedway.

Around the same time his media work got underway, he began performing the national anthem at Southeastern facilities and with the CARS Tour. He even handled anthem duties during the Madhouse Classic — on his birthday — the day before the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray in 2025.

He stresses that his motorsports media endeavors remain a hobby, simply providing him with a way to be part of the racing scene.

“I’m so thankful that I get these opportunities to do this,” he says. “It’s just such a perfect combination of everything I love with sports and music and competition and art. I'm glad they let me in the building.”

Music and the roar of race engines each represent a special sound. Each one tells a unique story, and Whitfield embodies the spirit of both.

“I think a lot of music and racing fans overlap, especially with Southern rock, country and rock and roll,” he says. “There's just an edge to it that I think resonates with people.”

Find Skyler Whitfield on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music.

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