[VIDEO] Bartender Wins a New Corvette Stingray Given Away by Jay Leno on Wheel of Fortune

May 19, 2026

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[VIDEO] Bartender Wins a New Corvette Stingray Given Away by Jay Leno on Wheel of Fortune

When I was a kid, nothing on television grabbed my attention quite like the game show High Rollers. The giant dice were fun, sure — but the real magic was one particular prize on the stage. Every so often, a contestant would roll their way into a brand new C3 Corvette, and for a Stingray obsessed viewer, that was pure magic.

More than 50 years later, Corvettes are still creating those moments. And this time, the spotlight fell on a Kernersville, North Carolina bartender who spun his way into a life changing prize — the exact Corvette donated by Jay Leno.

Jason Nieradka appeared on this week’s episodes of Wheel of Fortune, and by the time the credits rolled, he had pocketed nearly $78,000 and driven off — metaphorically, for now — with the Arctic White 2026 Corvette Stingray that Leno himself put up as the show’s top prize.

During the bonus round, Leno handed contestants the envelopes. Nieradka picked the one hiding the Corvette.

“I was just looking at everyone’s envelope,” he joked on the show. “Everyone else was kind of peeking.”

The episodes were taped in early April, meaning he had to sit on the secret for weeks.

“It’s not easy to hide a lot of emotions when things like this happen,” he said. “But I did a good job keeping things under wraps for as long as I did. I’m really happy with how things played out.”

Despite the national attention, Nieradka slipped right back behind the bar at his Kernersville job.

“I enjoy what I do,” he said. “It wasn’t a pain to come back and get behind the bar again at all.”

He plans to take a vacation eventually — but for now, he’s enjoying the whirlwind.

Nieradka’s Corvette wasn’t just any prize car — it was the one Jay Leno announced during the May 11 episode, a roughly $70,000 slice of American performance that five contestants competed for on May 15.

“They know I’m a car enthusiast,” Leno told Vanna White. “So I wanted to give away a cool car.”

Corvettes have long been one of Leno’s automotive sweet spots. In a 2019 interview, he famously said the Corvette delivers “Lamborghini performance at Chevrolet prices,” adding that because it’s a Chevy, “you can fix it with a hammer and boom.”

Since the episode aired, Nieradka says he’s been overwhelmed by the support.

“People I haven’t talked to in 10 years are reaching out,” he said.

Even strangers are sending him messages about “how great it was to watch and see,” noting “they were rooting for me … to get the car. It was really cool to know that good things happen to good people, and I’m very, very fortunate.”

He praised the production team behind the long-time game show. “I expected it to be good and well managed, but I didn’t expect it to be so crisp and clean,” he said. “We’ve got 15 people in there in the studio who’ve never been there, never seen it, and never navigated it, and the way they push and pull you, it’s really easy.”

As a final keepsake, he even got to keep the winning envelope — now signed by Vanna White, Ryan Seacrest, and Jay Leno.