On the GTP account, I ran around Daytona a bit in some rental Gr.3 cars. Despite only being the 2nd-fastest among the American cars in my test, and against the consensus in the Nations/Manufacturers Cup thread, I think I'll go with the Corvette.
My SIXTH 3-star Wheel of Despair of 16 (and, pending the Plus run, my TENTH of 31) this month puked out the lowest-possible 5,000 Cr.
As I had time before the 10 am CST GT3 Nations Cup slot, I fired up the Plus account and ran the Corvette Gr.3 at the Daytona GT Cup Gr.3 race. It was a simple case of running high until I got clear, then hugging the bottom for 6:07. Like most oval races, it wasn't clean, so it was only worth 56,000 Cr. Even with the CRB, it isn't worth a repeat.
I didn't yet have my Wheel of Despair, so I headed to Red Bull Ring for the last race, the GT Cup Gr.3. It looked moderately wet, so I put intermediates on my Corvette. I bailed immediately when I saw it was almost soaking wet, switching to full wets. The Lambo shot past and ran away, so I switched to the old BoP standby, the Subaru BRZ GT300.
Even without the Lambo in the race, it took a lot of blocking to hold off the white Ford GT LM and McLaren 650S (by just under 0.2 seconds) for an clean (?!) win in 12:41. Yet again, a not-repeatable race. At least I didn't get a 3-star Wheel of Despair. Instead, the 4-star gave the ultra-high rpm turbo for the Bugatti Chiron, which I immediately put on my tuner car.
Back on the GTP account, I double-checked how many points I need to get to wipe out my current lowest-counting score - it's 13. Given 15th and last gives 14 points, that's doable. I was the only Vette in, with door number 10. I qualified 8th in 52.500. Pole in a Honda NSX was 52.244. Some overly-aggressive driving by somebody ahead got me 2 spots by the backstretch on, first from somebody who got punted, then as the punter served his 5-second penalty.
I saw I was holding up the 3 remaining front-runners, so I let them by in turns 1-2 on lap 6, hoping to still stay in their draft. That didn't happen, and the front 8 pulled away. I was holding a 4-second lead over 10th until I had to obey a pair of yellow flags on lap 13. I was about to pass the casualty of the first wreck when the second yellow flag came out, which allowed 10th though 13th to pass. I was able to pass the casualty of the second wreck to start the 14th lap in 12th.
One of those who got by had to serve a 3-second penalty for passing under the second yellow. Naturally, neither of the causes got a penalty, though an innocent victim got a 4-second penalty. Some more rough driving by the pack ahead0 got me to 10th as the last lap started. 9th place went high in turn 3, allowing me to get that spot. I had to go high coming out of turn 4 to try to get 8th, and was almost successful, losing out by a splitter after a slight side-by-side touch. I'll take my 22 points and run.
But even then, I don't think I could have got 3rd. The AI was miles ahead of me, which was a pity because I was rather enjoying the WTC900 as a replacement for a JGTC tournament - the other races have been very enjoyable, but this one seemed a bit too hard for a stock GT500.
