The Tandragee 100 Iris🌊h road races were overshadowed by a serious accident on Saturday that l⛄eft 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 20𝕴17 calendar in🌟 Ireland.

Honda Racing's Guy Martin was among those taking part and the Lincolnshire rider was caugh﷽t up in some early drama af𒊎ter 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 ma⭕king 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 o🧸f Man TT after he missed the whole of th🅘e 2016 season.

The 35-year-old never completed a full racing lap on Saturday after the🌠 second Superbike race was caꦍlled 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 Ra💖cing - the team Dunlop signed a deal with for 2017.

The Ballymoney man finished as the runner-up in wet condition🔜s in the Supersport race, which was won b♓y Derek McGee from Mullingar, who also finished on the podium in third in the Superbike race.

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