On the GTP account, I ground my way to perhaps the least-costly almost-no-tuning-required win (assuming one buys the car rather than using the one won in the cafe books), at the Tokyo wet race. I got tired of grinding my tuned R33 GT-R here, so I decided to go through my garage for another no-to-minimal-tune alternative to that, the R-35 GT-R (which is too portly for my driving style), the GT by Citroen Road Car, and the X-Bow (with which I barely won). I didn't want to detune anything, so all of the over-600 PP cars were out. The Charger Hellcat is even more portly than the R-35, it's RWD, and it has SH tires. The Ferrari F430 and Porsche 911 GT3 (997) were both irretrievably tuned past 600 PP. I could have probably used either the AMG SLS or GT S, but I figured weight would again be an issue.
Then I remembered I had a 2014 Chevrolet Corvette C7 lying around (worth 51,000 Cr., and 576.40 PP bone stock). It wasn't quite stable enough in stock form to be truly competitive, though the impressive top speed and ability to run 12 laps with some fuel savings held promise. I put the Front A (for 3,000 Cr.), Side A (for 2,500 Cr.) and Rear A (for 3,000 Cr.) aero parts on, and turned the downforce up from the no-aero 40/40 to 140/140. That also brought the PP up to 592.18, for a grand total of 59,500 Cr. spent.
I set off on lap 1 on FM4, intent on not stopping. I hung back in the first couple turns as the stock SH tires don't like wet tracks too much, and started making my moves headed to the first S-curve. I made it up to 12th by the end of the 2:38.9 lap.
I gained another spot on the second lap, a 2:20.9 effort. Then the track started agreeing with the tires some more, and I started my string of sub-2:19 laps. The best one of those was on lap 4, at 2:17.2, as I started catching traffic on lap 5 and started getting sloppy at the end of the main straight. I took 8th at the end of lap 5 as Gallo and Blazsan pitted for the first time.
On lap 6, I passed Miyazono for 7th in the 2nd, tighter left/right S-curve, and took 2nd as everybody ahead of me except Hizal came down for their pit stop. Miyazono held up Gallo on the back half of the course of the succeeding lap, which allowed me to assume the lead when Hizal came down for his pit stop on lap 7. The lead didn't last long, as I scraped the wall (thankfully not getting a penalty), as I moved over too far to let Gallo by at the end of the front stretch.
By this time, the tires were starting to show some wear, though not as much as Gallo's second set of SS tires. I was actually starting to catch him on lap 9 when he pitted for a second time, handing the lead back to me.
Kokubun, meanwhile, was making his SS tires work, closing to within 6 seconds at the hairpin coming onto the front straight on lap 11. Noticing this, and that I still had 2 laps' worth of fuel, I turned up the fuel map to 1. Unfortunately for Kokubun, his tires had given him all they could, and he came down for a fresh set.
That turned 2nd back over to Gallo, who started the last lap just over 9 seconds ahead. Between my profligate use of fuel, which gave me a fast lap of 2:16.0, and Gallo's not-very-smooth trip through the back half of the course, that lead held, and I won the race in 27:57.9. A better driver than me could probably do this on hard difficulty (my run was on normal), or bone-stock.
There were no cash prizes on the 4-star Wheel of Despair, which instead gave me a racing crank shaft for the Ford Mustang Gr.3 Road Car (which, naturally, I don't own).
On the Plus account, after golding the Fishermans Ranch CE, I got a(nother) cashless 4-star marathon roulette, this time giving me the 911/964 engine.
