Reading a Heat Track: Plan the Lap Before the Flag

Every Heat board prints what you need to plan a lap: each corner’s Speed Limit, the number of Spaces to the next corner along the track, the corners and Spaces per lap, and the laps per race. Most drivers read those numbers one corner at a time, as the corner arrives. This lesson shows how to read the whole lap before the flag drops, and turn it into a plan for your Heat.

The base box has four tracks on two double-sided boards: USA, France, Great Britain, and Italy. The method below works on any of them, and on every expansion track.

Step 1: sort the corners

Look at each corner’s Speed Limit and the straight that follows it. Every corner fits roughly one of three labels.

Cool. A low limit, so you will cross it slowly no matter what. You are going to be in a low gear anyway, so this is where you plan your Cooldown: 3 in 1st gear, 1 in 2nd. The plan is to arrive here with Heat in your hand.

Spend. A higher limit with a long straight after it. A Space gained here keeps paying, because you land further down a long stretch. Paying 1 or 2 Heat to cross a little over the limit can be worth it.

Slip. A corner where cars tend to bunch on the approach, often after a short straight. Plan to arrive just short of the line next to someone and slipstream across, so the 2 Spaces cost nothing.

A corner can be more than one. Labels are a starting plan, not a rule.

Step 2: find the corner pairs

Look for two corners close together. If one move can cross both lines, you check each corner separately, and the bills add up. A big move through a pair can cost far more Heat than either corner alone, and a spin at the first one sends you back before it.

Treat a pair as one long corner. Either cross them over two rounds at a calm Speed, or cross both at a Speed you have checked against both limits. The expansion tracks add chicanes, two Corner Lines close together with the same limit, which are the clearest case of this.

Step 3: mark the straights

Long straights are where your high cards and Stress cards belong. Note where they are, so your hand management can save 4s and the 5 for them, as in the hand management lesson. A Boost on a long straight that crosses no Corner Line costs 1 Heat and nothing more.

Short straights between corners are where races get messy. There is not enough room to use a big hand, and a big hand runs you into the next corner. Plan to stay in a middle gear through them.

Step 4: budget the Heat

Now add it up. Count the spend corners on one lap and roughly what each will cost at the Speed you want. Count the cool corners and how much Heat you can realistically return at each. Then compare with what you have: usually 6 Heat in your Engine and 1 in your deck in the core game, though the board sets the number for each track.

If the spend total is far more than your Heat plus your cooldowns, drop one spend corner to a slip or a cool. If it is far less, you are leaving Spaces on the table. Pick a corner to attack.

For a two-lap race, remember the endgame lesson: the final lap needs no Heat left over at the line, so the last few corners can be spend corners even if they were cool corners on lap one.

Step 5: check the start and finish

Two places on every track deserve their own look.

• The first corner. How far is it from the grid, and can you reach it in 2nd gear? The openings lesson covers the three clean ways through.
• The last corner before the finish. Speed Limits past the finish line do not count, so the race often comes down to who gets through the last corner fast enough to run deep past the line.

When the plan breaks

It will. Cars block Spaces, a Stress card flips a 4, a rival takes your slipstream. The labels still help: if you miss a planned cooldown, find the next cool corner and shift your budget forward. A plan you can adjust beats deciding every round from scratch.

Weather and Road Conditions change corner limits and sectors, so the labels move. The next lesson covers how.