Heat Corners Explained: Speed Limits, Heat, and Spin Outs

Corners are where Heat stops being a card game and starts being a race. They are also where new tables make the most rules slips, because the bill arrives at step 7, after several other things have moved your car. This lesson works through the corner rules from the core Rules booklet one example at a time, so the arithmetic is automatic by the end of your first race.

The one question

In step 7, Check Corner, look back over your whole turn. Did your car cross a Corner Line at any point this turn? If not, there is nothing to check.

If it did, compare your Speed to the corner’s Speed Limit, the number printed beside the Corner Line.

• Speed at or under the limit: nothing happens.
• Speed over the limit: pay 1 Heat for each point over. Paying means moving a Heat card from your Engine to your discard pile.

That is the whole rule. Everything else is about what goes into “Speed.”

What counts as Speed

Your Speed for the round is the total value of every card in your Play Area, plus 1 if you took the Adrenaline extra Space. In the core game, that means:

• The cards you played, including the Starting Upgrades. The 0 adds nothing; the 5 adds 5.
• Stress cards, which are replaced by the Basic card flipped from your deck.
• Boost, which also flips until a Basic card appears and adds it to your Play Area.
• Adrenaline, if you were last and took the extra Space.

What does not count: slipstream. Its 2 Spaces move your car but never touch your Speed.

Five worked corners

Each example uses a corner with a Speed Limit of 4.

1. Under the limit. You are in 2nd gear and play a 1 and a 3. Speed 4. You cross the Corner Line and pay nothing.

2. Over by two. Same corner, 2nd gear, but you play a 2 and a 4. Speed 6, which is 2 over. You move 2 Heat from your Engine to your discard pile.

3. Boost into the corner. You play a 1 and a 2 for a Speed of 3, which stops you just short of the line. You pay 1 Heat to Boost and flip a 3. Now your Speed is 6, you cross the line, and you owe 2 more Heat. The Boost cost you 3 Heat in total. Boost is not wrong here, but it is expensive.

4. Slip across. You play a 1 and a 3, Speed 4, and end next to another car one Space short of the line. You slipstream 2 Spaces and cross. Your Speed is still 4, so the corner is free.

5. Two corners in one move. You play big on a short straight and cross two Corner Lines, the first with a limit of 4 and the second with a limit of 5. Your Speed is 7. Check them in order: 3 Heat for the first, then 2 for the second. Five Heat in one turn, and it is easy to underpay if you only check the second corner.

When you cannot pay

If you owe more Heat than your Engine holds, you pay everything you have and spin out, all at once:

1. Move your car back to the first available Space before the Corner Line that caused the spin.
2. Take Stress cards from the reserve into your hand: 1 if you were in 1st or 2nd gear, 2 if you were in 3rd or 4th.
3. Move your Gear pawn to 1st gear.

Say you are in 3rd gear with 2 Heat in your Engine and owe 3. You pay both Heat cards, go back behind the line, take 2 Stress cards, and start next round in 1st gear. If you crossed two corners and spin at the first one, you go back behind that first line, so the second corner never gets checked.

Other places Heat leaves your Engine

Corners are the big bill, but not the only one. Heat also pays for:

• Boost, 1 Heat, once per turn, in any gear. With an empty Engine you cannot Boost.
• Shifting two gears in step 1, 1 Heat. With an empty Engine you can shift only one gear.

Every Heat you pay goes to your discard pile and returns later as a dead card in your hand. That loop is why the corners matter so much: each bill is paid twice, once now in Heat, and once later in a wasted card slot until you cool down.

After the finish line

Two corner rules change at the end of the race. Speed Limits on corners past the finish line do not count, so move as far as you can. And slipstream can never carry you across the finish line. Both come up again in the endgame lesson.

A habit for the first race

Before you play cards, find two numbers on the board: the Spaces to the next Corner Line, printed along the track, and that corner’s Speed Limit. Pick cards that stop short of the line, or carry you over it at a Speed you can afford. Keep the teach sheet in reach until the corner math runs on its own.