On the first tab of the Customise your Civilization screen there is a Clear button. That should pull your updated RaceConfig values from the file. However this will only work for major races, if you clear a custom race (Race ID 12 isn't it?) it will clear back to the custom default.
You can also clear just the trait picks, by selecting Reset on the Abilities tab. This will pull the inherent racial abilities from whichever raceconfig.xml you have loaded. Inherent abilities are defined at the end of those files like this:
<ECONOMICS>10</ECONOMICS>
Right after that is a line like this which says how many picks have been invested in the current configuration:
<Ability0>0</Ability29>
So if you want a custom race which has its own unique racial bonuses (or penalties) and still have room to customise, this is one way you could do it.
