You get access to the Pod Race event on Special Stage Route 5's pit layout after all events on Normal are complete. You can do it on Professional if you want and get both Normal and Professional prize cars.
You can also do Ace (unless that's in Seoul or Geneva) by a 2-3 button combo that's easy to pull off but you don't get any rewards for it it's just a higher lap count or difficulty.
Which of course the Normal/Professional events require the license tests to allow for all normal and reverse layouts to be available in the Single Race menu.
For the Pod car itself I think it's available from the Concept car list or available at the same time as access to the Pod Race event.
The other benefits like the 10 million GT3 credits start, License Tests filled with bronze or otherwise open up after other completion from like Professional event winning of their cars or so. Or it's all of them open up upon normal event completion. I am looking for how to.
I'd recommend watching let's plays or reviews on the game. Sure many cover the Geneva version but many of the core elements I think still apply. At least from me covering manufacturer demos many of the core progression is still there but cut back and the Seoul/Geneva I think had more cars but the same tracks.
The core progression to them was the same but other then the lists of cars to select some were changed like some prize cars swapped around as well I guess. As I remember one of the Hyundai cars as a prize car so some may be changed per region of Seoul/Geneva instead of Tokyo's original cars offered as a prize.
Kind of how I see the GT5 Prologue Spec 1 to 3 as far as I could tell by the 2 and 3 differences since i have both disks and not much changed.
