An Alabama woman came within a few letters of winning a new car Monday evening on “Wheel of Fortune.”

It’s not like Cherish Franklin of Mobile had a bad night. She dominated most of the episode, racking up $24,300, putting her well out in front of Beth Ann Sinnett from Ohio ($9,571 and a trip valued at $7,571) and Broderick McMillan of Charlotte, N.C. ($2,000). She might have done even better if not for spinning an untimely “bankrupt” on the wheel, costing her nearly $4,000 and a potential shot at a million dollars.

She made it to the night’s bonus round, however, with an Infiniti QX50 as the prize. Unfortunately, she guessed “Can’t say the word” when the mystery phrase was “Just say the word.”

“You were right there at the end,” said host Pat Sajak. “If you had a few more seconds you would have been there.”

“You hear the sadness, rippling through the audience there?” he said. Then he worked to take the sting out of the near miss. “Come here, you got $24,300, for goodness sake,” he said. “You did great. You good?”

“Yes!” said Franklin, laughing as Sajak put things in perspective.

In Facebook posts before the episode aired, Franklin referred to her experience on the show as “the chance of a lifetime.”