The Heat Midgame: Cooldowns, Slipstream, and Tempo

By the middle of a race, the field has spread out, every driver has paid for a corner or two, and the first Heat cards are turning up in hands. The opening was about your own rhythm. The midgame is about managing a loop you started on lap one, and about the cars around you.

The Heat cycle

Follow one Heat card through a race:

1. It starts in your Engine.
2. You pay it for a corner, a Boost, or a two-gear shift. It goes to your discard pile.
3. Your deck runs out. The discard pile, Heat and all, becomes your new deck.
4. You draw it. Now it sits in your hand, taking up a slot, unplayable.
5. You cool down, and it goes back to your Engine, ready to spend again.

Three things follow from this. First, Heat you spend early tends to come back later, often at an awkward moment. Second, the faster your deck cycles, the sooner it returns, so discarding a lot in step 8 has a cost. Third, there is a small upside to Stress cards and Boost: when you flip cards from your deck to resolve them, any Heat card you flip past goes straight to your discard pile instead of into your hand.

Cool down on purpose

Cooldown comes from 1st gear (3), 2nd gear (1), and Adrenaline (1). It only works on Heat cards in your hand. A round in 1st gear with no Heat in hand gives you nothing but a slow round.

So time your low gears for when Heat is in your hand, and match them to slow corners. A corner with a limit of 2 or 3 asks you to slow down anyway. Crossing it in 1st or 2nd gear turns a forced slow round into a free cooldown.

The bad version is the reverse: dropping to 1st gear on a long straight because your hand is full of Heat. You lose Spaces twice, once for the slow round and once for the straight you did not use.

Slipstream through corners

Slipstream is the cheapest movement in the game. It happens after you move, it adds 2 Spaces, and it never counts toward your Speed.

That makes it a corner tool. If you end your move next to a car or right behind one, just short of a Corner Line, slipstreaming carries you over the line, and the corner checks your Speed without those 2 Spaces. Approach slowly, then slip across for free.

Because cars move front to back, you see where everyone ahead has landed before you decide. React comes before Slipstream, so you can also Boost to reach a car and then slipstream past it.

Spots, full Spaces, and the Race Line

Each Space has two Spots. The Spot nearer the Race Line counts as ahead, so when you share a Space, that side wins.

When both Spots of a Space are taken, any car that would finish there stops in the first free Spot behind. Two cars side by side just before a corner can push a third car back a Space or more. You cannot fully plan a block, since everyone picks cards at the same time, but you can notice when the cars ahead of you are likely to bunch up, and aim one Space shorter or longer.

Adrenaline and the pack

The last car each round gets Adrenaline: 1 extra Space, which counts toward its Speed, and 1 extra Cooldown. In a race of 5 or more cars, the last two both get it.

Add a slipstream and a trailing car can gain several Spaces beyond its cards in a single round. That keeps races close. If you lead, do not relax: the pack is gaining a little every round. If you trail, do not panic. Our article on catch-up mechanics looks at how games keep a leader from running away with it.

Read the table before your hand

A lot of the race is public:

• Gear pawns show what gear every driver is in, and so how many cards they are playing.
• Engines hold face-up Heat, so you can count what each rival can still pay.
• The top card of each discard pile is public.
• Car positions show who is close to a corner and who has slipstream chances.

A driver with an empty Engine cannot Boost and cannot afford to overshoot any corner, so expect them to brake. A driver in 4th gear with plenty of Heat right before a straight is about to jump ahead. Use those reads to guess where the cars will land, and where your slipstream will be.

When to Boost

Boost costs 1 Heat and adds a random 1 to 4, and that extra counts toward your Speed at corners.

• Good times: on a straight where you will not cross a Corner Line, to reach a slipstream spot, or when you are far under a corner’s limit.
• Bad times: when you are already near the limit of a corner you are crossing. You pay 1 Heat for the Boost and may owe more at the corner.

Boost and Stress have the same weakness: you do not know the number. Use them where any number from 1 to 4 is fine.