Sumopower / JR Motorsport Open Day
Today was the open day for the tuning and parts company Sumopower and their partner JR Motorsport. We headed down in the morning to check out their recently built state of the art facility in Rye, Kent. We’d heard rumours and seen a few sneak pictures of this new place but the reality of it was more than we’d imagined. It’s clear as soon as you walk in that a LOT of money has been spent here, with equiptment on site ranging from 14 seperate ramps, a chassis dyno, engine dyno, chassis jig, full bodyshop, well equiped engine building ‘clean room’ aswell as a machine shop more than capable of fabricating any custom parts required.
The first thing that greated us when we walked in was a workshop area with MOT bay and a Hunter laser alignment system, pretty cool stuff… oh and there was a couple of cars here too 
Race prepped Mitsubishi Evo X, the first of many dotted about
Sumopower’s drag R33
This drift S15 Silvia was rather menacing
We found this evil monster lurking at the back corner of the room, this is JRM’s drag evo. With the front clam removed you can see the extent of the modifications this car has recieved, highlights being the spaceframed chassis and THAT turbo!
Moving on into the machine room, a full complement of CNC machinery and a table full of custom built parts.
Leading on from there was the engine build room and the engine dyno.
Next up we found the bodyshop. This housed 4 prep bays, a spraybooth, mixing room and a rather cool chassis jig.
This was one of the prep bays, with another Evo X. This one was fresh from the factory and not yet modified, although I don’t think it will stay that way for long. The other 3 bays in here all had identical brand new Evo’s parked in them too 
Chassis jig, with obligatory Evo
Finally the last room downstairs was the area where customer’s cars are worked on, with a few more ramps here. Sumo had invited a few freinds to display their cars for the day.
Do-Luck Supra
J’s Racing S2000
The last place to check out was the upstairs floor. Here the companies keep what are in my opinion the best toys they have.
Cool Evo, but what’s that…
…famous driver too
Lastly, my favourite cars of the day. The Nissan R35 GTR GT1 race cars. The guys have built two of these to be raced in the GT1 series. Very very nice cars, built to an exceptionally high standard. I hope I get a chance to see these in action this year.
