Clarendon resident Charlie Snook couldn't help but look at the silver Corvette with a bit of glint in his eyes.
When he was a young man, he said, he would have taken the car, but the cash will get him and his wife to Hawaii for the first time and then take care of some recent unexpected expenses.
Snook is this year's winner of Stafford Fire Department's annual Corvette raffle, and Snook almost didn't get a ticket.
He intended to make it to Stafford on the Saturday of the carnival, but one thing led to another and he never got out of the house.
And Sunday's weather, of course, was miserable.
"Wind, mud, rain, I wasn't even going to come," Snook said. "Things like this don't happen to me. They happen to other people."
Snook and his wife bought two books of tickets and one of those tickets was the winner.
Pictured with Snook are Robin Krenzer, of the car committee, and Fire Department President Dave Wallace.
It's a beautiful car, Snook admitted, but he gladly took his check from Krenzer.
"Twenty years ago it would have been different," he said.
The total cash prize was $50,000.
