The Getaway pinball tournament strategy: shift gears and get to Redline Mania

The Getaway: High Speed II has a gear shifter where the plunger should be, three flippers, and a ruleset built on driving in circles. It has 473 tracked tournament games in our data, more than half of them at Blainbrook.

The game keeps a tachometer. Orbits and loops add to it, and when it fills you shift up a gear. Five gears lead to Redline Mania, the multiball that decides most tournament games on this machine. The player who remembers to shift usually beats the player who does not.

The short version

1. Launch with the shifter and let the ball roll past the upper flipper down to the lower right flipper.
2. Shoot orbits, starting with the right orbit from the left flipper. It comes back to the same flipper.
3. Move the shifter every time the game tells you to. RPMs stop counting until you do.
4. Shoot the ramp from the right flipper. It is safe, and it helps toward locks.
5. After fifth gear, shoot the ramp to start Redline Mania.

Gears

Every orbit and every loop from the upper flipper adds one RPM. The gears need 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 RPMs in turn, 15 in all.

Once a gear's RPMs are in, nothing more counts until you move the shifter. Either direction works. This is the most common way to lose points on The Getaway: a player makes four more orbits after the gear filled, and none of them counted.

One shortcut is worth learning. Roll through the left inlane and then make the right orbit, and that orbit counts as two RPMs. It works once per gear.

There is a catch with locks. While a lock is lit, the left orbit and the upper loop stop giving RPMs, because the game sends those shots to the lock instead. Take the lock or use the right orbit.

The shots

Right orbit. From the lower left flipper, and it returns to the left flipper, so you can shoot it again at once. It is the easiest shot on the game to repeat.

Ramp. The Supercharger, on the left, from the lower right flipper. It feeds the left inlane, which sets up the double RPM. It is the other low-risk shot.

Left orbit. From the lower right flipper. It feeds the upper right flipper.

Upper loop. Only the upper right flipper can make it, and the ball comes back to that flipper. Consecutive loops score Speed Millions: 1M for the first, and 1M more for each one after.

Tunnel. The saucer to the left of the right orbit. It gives the Burn Rubber award after each shift and starts Video Mode when that is lit. It kicks the ball toward the upper right flipper.

The launch itself sends the ball around the loop to the upper flipper and counts as an RPM. A weak launch can miss the loop and drift toward the right outlane.

Redline Mania

Finish fifth gear and shoot the ramp. Redline Mania is a three-ball multiball that starts with the jackpot already lit, the kickback on, and the extra ball lit where those are allowed. The jackpot is worth more than in a regular multiball, and after you collect it, two more ramp shots light a super jackpot of 100M.

Kassidy Milanowski, writing for Nudge Magazine, says reaching it usually wins a tournament game. Collect the lit jackpot first, then go for the 100M.

Gears reset afterward, and the second trip through them needs more RPMs per gear.

The regular multiball

The three banks of stoplight targets light the locks: green first, then yellow, then red. Each completed color lights one lock, and locks are collected at the ramp in the back, which only lowers when a lock or a jackpot is lit. Reaching it takes a firm left orbit or an upper loop.

Before your first multiball only, ramp shots and Tunnel shots each spot a stoplight, so the safe shots are doing lock work for you early. Machines on a hard preset turn that help off.

In multiball the jackpot is 25M and needs 10 loops to light. A ramp shot counts as 10 loops, so one ramp lights it. After the first jackpot the requirement doubles. Super jackpots start at 50M and need two balls in play.

The advice from Tilt Forums is to light all three locks before Redline Mania and play the regular multiball after it.

The two timed modes

Video Mode is lit by third gear and starts at the Tunnel. It pays far more in a higher gear: about 27M in fifth against 16M to 20M in fourth, and less in third. Wait. In the mode, weaving between the two left lanes is the usual route through traffic.

Supercharger Mode comes with fourth gear and runs 20 seconds. The ramp pays 5M, 10M, 15M, 20M and 25M on consecutive shots. After each ramp, hold the left flipper up so the ball passes across to the right flipper, then shoot the ramp again. Remember to shift when it ends.

Where the ball drains

• The left outlane is the main drain. Its divider is bare metal with nothing to bounce off.
• The 1-2-3 targets above each outlane relight the kickback, and shots at them leave the ball next to the outlanes. The left 3 target is the worst. Players on Tilt Forums get their kickback from Burn Rubber or Redline Mania and leave the targets alone.
• A missed upper loop dribbles toward the right outlane.
• A slow ball off the upper flipper can hit the post below the shooter lane exit and drain.

The ball save at the start of multiball is short, and a ball launched after a lock gets none. The default tilt gives two warnings.

Tournament settings

In Tournament Play mode the Burn Rubber awards come in a fixed order: 5M, an RPM, Freeway, Video Mode, Multiball, and then the list repeats. The fifth Burn Rubber is a multiball. Count them.

Do not shift while a Burn Rubber award is still lit at the Tunnel. The next gear's award overwrites it.

What the tracked games say

Numbers are from late September 2026. The Getaway machine page has the live ones.

The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead. The Getaway's 33.3% is two points under the average of 35.5%, and lower than the other games of its era in this series, Bride of Pinbot and Attack From Mars among them. A game that pays for the same two shots made over and over rewards the player who can make them, and it shows. The full ranking is in upset rates by machine.

At 14:54 for a typical game, it is also several minutes shorter than most modern Sterns. For a favorite who wants a reliable game that will finish inside a timed round, that is a useful combination.

Among players with at least 20 games on it, Chris Frame has the best record, finishing ahead of 71% of the opponents he has faced. Bryan Moen has won 20 of his 36 games outright. Luke Nahorniak and Adam Turgeson follow. The scouting report shows how you compare with your own group.

Where to play it

• Blainbrook in Blaine has it on the floor, with 261 tracked games going back to 2021. See the Blainbrook guide.
• Northstar Pinball Collective ran 144 tracked games on one through March 2026.
• Stray Dog used one in tournaments in May and June 2026.

Check the venue page for the current lineup before you go.

Before your next game

The Getaway playbook has player tips, videos and rulesheet links, and the scores tab shows the best games on record. For the full rules we leaned on the Pinball Primer guide, Sigma's Guide and the Pinball for Mortals mini guide.

Steve Ritchie designed Firepower twelve years earlier and Game of Thrones twenty-three years later. The whole series is in the machine strategy guides.