Serious incident overshadows Tandragee 100

The Tandragee 100 Irish road races were overshadowed by a serious accident on Saturday that left a rider critically injured.

Dario Cecconi (38) came off in the Senior Support race on the final lap. The final two races were abandoned.

The Tandragee meeting is the first race on the 2017 calendar in Ireland.

Honda Racing's Guy Martin was among those taking part and the Lincolnshire rider was caught up in some early drama after crashing on the first lap of the opening Superbike race.

Martin and Ulsterman Paul Jordan tangled and crashed into a grass verge, but both were unhurt. The English rider was making his roads bow on the new Honda SP2 Superstock machine at Tandragee, where he hadn't raced since 2005.

Martin needs to compete in six races in order to gain his licence to be eligible for the Isle of Man TT after he missed the whole of the 2016 season.

The 35-year-old never completed a full racing lap on Saturday after the second Superbike race was called off due to the serious incident later in the evening.

Martin is entered at the Cookstown 100 in County Tyrone next weekend before he returns to the North West 200 in May, which is the first major international road race of 2017.

Irishman Derek Sheils won the only Superbike race at Tandragee on the Cookstown/B.E. Racing Suzuki by 14 seconds from William Dunlop, who was riding a Yamaha R1 Superstock machine in the Mar-Train colours. Dunlop took up an offer to ride the bike at Tandragee with no 1000cc machinery yet forthcoming from Halsall Racing - the team Dunlop signed a deal with for 2017.

The Ballymoney man finished as the runner-up in wet conditions in the Supersport race, which was won by Derek McGee from Mullingar, who also finished on the podium in third in the Superbike race.

Heavy rain prevailed for most of the day and the serious incident late in the afternoon cast a cloud over the event, which is regarded as one of the very best National road race meetings in Ireland.