Man wins Corvette and cash thanks to a birthday NC lottery ticket. ‘I’m thinking red’

A North Carolina man was given a $5 lottery ticket as a birthday gift this week and ended up winning a Corvette Stingray and $100,000 on the side.

It’s unclear if Steven Hair of Troy actually wanted a Corvette at age 66, but he’s taking it anyway. Who wouldn’t?

“You can’t get a better birthday,” Hair said in a new release from the N.C. Education Lottery. “I don’t think it can be topped!”

His prize counts as the first time the state lottery has offered a Corvette as a prize in one of its scratch-off games, officials said. Winners faced odds of 1 in 1.5 million, according to the lottery website.

The game, called Corvette & Cash, affords winners the chance to pick the 2021 model (or whatever model is available), and “their favorite options,” officials said. A Corvette Stingray with all the bells and whistles can cost “up to $109,600,” the lottery says.

“I’m thinking red,” Hair joked, referring to his color choice for the car. “This is the ultimate prize. “

Hair was celebrating his birthday Monday with friends when his “partner at the Montgomery County Humane Society” handed him a couple of lottery tickets from a Quik Chek in Asheboro, according to the release.

He scratched them off after they finished dinner, discovered he was a winner and drove to lottery office in Raleigh the next day to claim his prize.

The $100,000 was trimmed to $70,751 after state and federal taxes, lottery officials said.

“I’m thinking about buying a new house with part of that,” Hair said in the release.

They Corvette & Cash game has three more top prizes still to be won, according to the lottery website.

This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 3:02 PM with the headline "Man wins Corvette and cash thanks to a birthday NC lottery ticket. ‘I’m thinking red’."