Note: You can choose to shift your gear up/down two positions, but doing so will require that you pay one Heat In the core game you have access to symbols from your current gear (Boost and/or Cooldown) and Adrenaline if last. Each symbol is activated and completed individually. Otherwise, immediately put it in the discard pile and keep flipping until you find a Basic card (Speed symbol).

The Basic Game provides three upgrade cards. They all have 3 chevrons ( If you want to move your Gear pawn an extra step up or down (e.g. between gears 1&3 or 2&4) during step 1: Shift Gears, you have to pay 1 Heat immediately. As everyone shifts gears at the same time, just announce you are doing it, pay the Heat and move your Gear pawn accordingly. Take 1 extra Stress card into your hand if you are in 1st/2nd gear, or 2 extra Stress cards if you are in 3rd/4th gear. Every time you are asked to pay 1 Heat, you must take 1 Heat card from your Engine and move it to your discard pile. If you do not have a Heat card available, you cannot choose to Boost. If you went through a corner exceeding the Speed Limit and do not have enough Heat to pay, you spin out.

You win the race (and the game) by being the first player to cross the finish line after the number of laps indicated in the player area. If two or more cars finish in the same round, the winner is the player whose car is furthest ahead (the spot closest to the Race Line is the tiebreaker if two cars end up side by side). You may discard cards from your hand if you do not want to save them for future rounds. Do so by placing them face up into your discard pile. However, nobody can browse through the discard piles (including their own); only the top card is public knowledge. In this step you can play all types of cards except for Heat cards. Keep the 1-4 played cards facedown in your own Play Area. Adrenaline helps the last car to move each round (or in a 5-6 car game, the last two cars to move). It is not really a step of its own, but gives those players extra symbols that they may use in the React step. Players with Adrenaline may move 1 extra Space while adding 1 to their Speed value and/or gain 1 extra Cooldown.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal is played over several rounds. Some steps are compulsory, the rest (4-8) are all situational and only sometimes apply to your turn.Your current gear determines exactly how many cards you play from your hand. 1st gear means you must play 1 card, 2nd gear is 2 cards, and so on. Note: If you drive through several corners on the same turn, you must pay for each of them separately, starting with the first Corner Line you crossed. Spin Out If there are 2 cars next to each other, the car closest to the Race Line is considered ahead for all purposes.