[Piotrsko]

Stop it both of you.

A nose radius is added to flat bottom wings to increase the apparent angle of attack but it doesn't change the actual angle of attack or a slew of other characteristics thereby increasing relative lift with no additional drag penalty. I don't even fantasize what it is doing in ground effect because there too many variables to even conjure. Once again the extra lift here is a negative by product, but you can reduce overall AOA by perhaps 2-3 degrees to get back to the original COL. I suspect that reduced AOA also negates some induced drag but I believe that would be airfoil and camber line dependent.

The concept here is the racers get it half right, it lowers drag, BUT, they forget about the AOA increase which rotates the nose high to the relative slipstream. They do find out when it picks the wheels off the surface.

One suspects that if they had chosen an airfoil with neutral COP, or a different laminar section and accepted the minimal drag penalty, the racer would have stayed planted.