Heat has no fixed opening. The track, your grid spot, and your first seven cards change every race. But the first lap still follows patterns, and drivers who handle it well tend to do the same things: get into gear quickly, take the first corner without drama, and keep their engine healthy for the laps that decide the race.
Your car in numbers
Before strategy, the raw material. Your gear decides how many cards you play.
| Gear | Cards you play | Speed from Basic cards | Built in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 1 | 1 to 4 | Cooldown 3 |
| 2nd | 2 | 2 to 8 | Cooldown 1 |
| 3rd | 3 | 3 to 12 | None |
| 4th | 4 | 4 to 16 | None |
Boost is available in every gear for 1 Heat.
Your starting deck is 18 cards: 12 Basic cards, the 3 Starting Upgrades (a 0, a 5, and an extra Heat card), and 3 Stress cards. Basic cards average 2.5, so a normal round in 3rd gear moves you about 7 or 8 Spaces, and a round in 4th about 10.
The two numbered Starting Upgrades stretch your range. The 5 is your best card for a long straight. The 0 is quieter but useful: it fills a slot in a high gear without adding Speed, which helps when you want to stay in 3rd or 4th but need to keep a corner cheap.
The start
Everyone begins in 1st gear with 7 cards. On the first round you can shift up to 2nd for free, or jump straight to 3rd for 1 Heat.
The jump is worth it when the first straight is long enough to use the extra card. It is not free, though. The Heat you pay goes to your discard pile, gets shuffled back into your deck, and shows up later as a dead card in your hand. If the first corner is close, shift one gear, keep your Heat, and set up a clean corner instead.
The first corner
Before your first round, find the first corner’s Speed Limit and count the Spaces to its Corner Line. Then plan two rounds ahead. There are three clean ways through:
- Brake and roll. End your move a few Spaces short of the line. Next round, drop to a low gear and cross at or under the limit. In 1st or 2nd gear you also pick up Cooldown on the way.
- Pay and go. Cross a little over the limit, pay 1 or 2 Heat, and land well down the next straight. Good when the straight after the corner is long.
- Slip through. End your move next to a car, or right behind one, just short of the line. Then slipstream across. Those 2 Spaces never count toward your Speed, so they cost nothing at the corner.
What you want to avoid is the messy middle: a big hand of cards that carries you just past the line at 3 or 4 over the limit, with no straight after it to use the extra.
A Heat budget for lap one
You start with 6 Heat in your Engine and 1 more in your deck. In a two-lap race, a simple budget is to spend about half on lap one and cool down at least once before the lap ends. Treat it as a starting point, not a law. A track with tight corners late in the lap may call for saving more.
The best times to cool down are slow corners. If a corner’s limit is 3 and you would cross it in 1st or 2nd gear anyway, your gear’s Cooldown is a free bonus on a round you were going to take slowly.
Grid position
The grid is random for a single race. Each spot has its own strengths:
- Up front, you move first and have open track ahead, but no one to slipstream behind.
- In the pack, slipstream chances are everywhere, and blocked Spaces can push you back.
- At the back, you collect Adrenaline every round you stay last: 1 extra Space and 1 extra Cooldown.
One subtle edge for cars further back: everyone’s cards are chosen at the same time, but cars move front to back. When it is your turn to React, you can see exactly where the cars ahead landed before you decide whether to Boost or slipstream.
Which cards to keep
You hold 7 cards and play 1 to 4 each round, so your hand is a plan for the next two or three rounds. Keep a mix: low cards (1s, 2s, and the 0) for corners, and high cards (4s and the 5) for straights.
In step 8 you may discard cards you will not want soon. That cycles your deck faster, which also brings your Stress cards and spent Heat back around sooner. Discard with a purpose, not out of habit.
Stress cards are best played early, on the first long straight, where a random 1 to 4 costs you nothing and clears them out of your hand.
A good first lap, in plain terms
There is no perfect target, but a strong first lap usually looks like this:
- No spin outs.
- Two or three Heat still in your Engine as you start lap two.
- A gear and a hand that can handle the next corner.
If you start lap two with an empty Engine and a hand full of Heat, the opening got away from you. The midgame lesson shows how to recover.
Next lesson
Heat Hand Management: Seven Cards, Three Rounds Ahead
Next, hand management: what to keep, what to discard, and how to read seven cards as a plan for the next three rounds.
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Unofficial. Not affiliated with Days of Wonder or Asmodee. Heat: Pedal to the Metal is a trademark of Days of Wonder.