A Greensboro woman stood in Victory Lane at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday and watched her name get called as the $1 million winner of a NASCAR Powerball drawing broadcast live on television. Agnes Whitaker said she was speechless in the moment, and that the win did not feel real even as it was happening.
Whitaker had one-in-four odds heading into the final drawing, standing alongside three other finalists who had each made it through a national field of 20 players vying for the top prize, according to FOX8 WGHP. The promotion, run by Powerball, sent four finalists from across the country on VIP trips for two to NASCAR Championship Weekend in Miami, with the winner determined in a special drawing that aired on NBC, per Powerball.
Whitaker entered her ticket in the NASCAR Powerball Playoff: The Chase promotion back in May, and she worked her way to finalist status after three elimination drawings. She traveled to Miami with William Whitaker for the championship weekend, and said it was her first NASCAR race, calling the experience amazing and unlike anything she had experienced before.
How the Chase Promotion Paid Out
As the sole $1 million winner, Whitaker came out ahead of the other three finalists, who each received a $10,000 cash prize, according to Powerball's official promotion page. Every finalist's VIP trip package to Championship Weekend was valued at approximately $10,000 on its own, separate from the cash prizes awarded in the live drawing, Powerball notes. Earlier in the competition, every semifinalist who reached the start of The Chase collected $2,000, with additional cash prizes going out each time a player advanced through a drawing.
Powerball has said 2026 marked the fourth consecutive year that a player had a shot at winning $1 million in Victory Lane ahead of the NASCAR Cup Series Championship race. North Carolina specifically has now had a finalist in the promotion for three consecutive years, extending a streak that made Whitaker's trip to Miami feel like part of a local pattern rather than a one-off fluke.
A Past Winner From Kansas
Whitaker isn't the first state lottery player to walk away with the grand prize under this format. In the 2025 edition of the promotion, Kansas Lottery player Francisco Erives was declared the $1 million winner in a drawing held at Phoenix Raceway before that year's NASCAR Cup Series Championship race, as reported by NASCAR.com.
Planning a Trip to See Her Father
Whitaker said she plans to use her winnings to fund a trip to Hawaii to visit her father, who will turn 92 in May. She said she hopes to see him at Christmas, or if that doesn't work out, to make the trip in May for his birthday instead. For a woman who described the win as something that still doesn't feel real, the money is already pointed toward a very real family reunion thousands of miles from Victory Lane.
