I found this one interesting/contradicting to what a CANARD should be and how/when it SHOULD work:


Canards are a pretty crude way of generating downforce at the front compared to a wing, for example. The reason that they're near the wheels is because you can use the low pressure generated behind the canard to help suck the air out of the wheel well in front of the tire near the road. The front of the tire near the road is a high pressure region because the air is hitting is and the rotation of the tire squeezes the air into the road. So, low pressure sucking that out will reduce the high pressure zone and therefore the drag (and lift). Plus the fact that there is high pressure there reduces the drag from the canard (or dive plane) itself although it does reduce the downforce somewhat.

Anyway, there are a bunch of different configurations that you can come up with for different tracks and cars depending on whether or not you have a splitter, duct exits, etc. near the front corners. One thing ... with anything that creates downforce, it'll create drag as well and slow you down on anything except for a curve.

They're actually more suited to low speed than high speed. In general they make too much drag for high speed use, but that depends a lot on the design. The most important thing is the angle and the curvature (camber). The higher the angle and curvature, the better the performance at low speed. If you want to get an idea of the forces involved, hold a small book out of the window. It's probably worth at least 20 lbs. at 60mph.

Anyway, real ones for race cars are made from carbon with a honeycomb core and are held on with screws to something solid and usually have a support strap or something to hold them up. Even so, they snap off pretty easily.

-Steve