Roadster Rocket guide: fly, kickflip and land cleanly

Start with a road race

Choose Clocktower Sprint, Rocket and Rookie rivals. Wait for the scenery to finish preparing, then select Race Now. Acceleration is automatic: steer through bends and save nitro for a straight. You can finish entirely on the road.

This guide covers racing. The separate six Flight Trials have gates, scores, medals and time jumps. Racing has no time-jump button.

Keyboard and mobile controls

Drift makes a slide; it is gentler than the full brake. Release it before using nitro on the exit. Pause whenever you need to check a control.

Make your first flight short

1. Find a clear straight with room ahead and thrust in the meter.
2. Hold FLY briefly to rise, keeping the car above the road.
3. Release FLY and make small steering corrections as you descend. Aim to touch down upright on the road.

Once that feels comfortable, try a shallow inside line across a bend. Return above the road before landing: flying beyond the safe corridor or touching down off-road costs time. Holding FLY until thrust empties leaves less control over where you land.

Land a powered kickflip

Build speed on a straight, leave landing room and press E or tap FLIP once. Rocket can launch its kickflip from the road or the air. It rotates around the car’s length and needs 24% thrust, with a four-second cooldown.

Let the rotation finish, then land upright on supported road. A clean landing banks the pending nitro reward; a hard, incomplete or off-road landing loses it. Holding FLIP does not repeat the stunt. Repeating flips in the same course segment cannot keep earning bonuses.

Thrust and nitro do different jobs

Thrust powers lift and Rocket’s kickflip. Release FLY and drive on ordinary road to recharge; parking is not a refill strategy. Save some thrust for the next landing or required crossing.

Nitro adds speed. It slowly refills while driving on ordinary road above 8 m/s with NITRO released and no recovery underway. Clean corners, overtakes and eligible stunt landings earn extra. Holding an empty NITRO button prevents that slow refill; walls and loops do not provide it.

Learn each track’s grip rules

• Clocktower Sprint: learn steering and optional flight shortcuts. No vertical loop or special GRIP requirement.
• Skyloop Run: land before the vertical loop, arrive with thrust and hold G throughout on desktop. Grip spends thrust here; flight and stunts are disabled inside the loop. Losing support sends you back to retry.
• Clocktower Overdrive: each fork offers a left street route and a right wall, loop or flight shortcut. Held G/GRIP gives unlimited suction, independent of thrust. Flight across the canal still needs thrust. A missed shortcut returns you before its entrance; the clock keeps running.

Mobile auto grip is on by default for Skyloop and Overdrive; turn it off in settings if you want manual GRIP. It follows each course’s energy rules.

Find your mobile steering setup

Try landscape and keep Easy steering enabled initially. It follows bends in your current lane and helps brake for tight turns. Tilt or drag to choose another line; you still control flight, stunts and drift. Held nitro overrides automatic corner braking.

For tilt, allow motion access and center your phone comfortably. If sensors are unavailable, use the left drag pad. Its neutral point starts where your thumb touches down; small drags make small adjustments. Release the pad to return to tilt when enabled. Easy steering and auto grip are separate settings.

Keep your next goal simple

Finish once, land one flight, then add one clean kickflip. Best times stay in this browser, separated by track, car and difficulty; Easy steering times have their own category. APEX / AIR is solo racing against local AI, with no live multiplayer rooms or account required.