Dunlop clinches big bike double at Tandragee 100

Michael Dunlop won both the Open and the county Armagh circuit victories in his first appearance at the Tandragee 100 road races since 2013 and is now doing so for the first time since 2013.

At the chequered flag, Dunlop rode his MD Racing BMW Superstock machine, finishing 0.4 seconds ahead of Michael Sweeney, with Mike Browne taking third place in the final corner.

The 36-year-old repeated the dose in the Tandragee 100 six-lapper with a new record of 111.584 mph on his final circuit, beating nearest rival Sweeney by eight seconds on that occasion.

Both frontrunners had broken Dan Kneen’s seven-year-old lap record in the Open round and had raised the bar even more during the event’s thrilling conclusion.

After the first lap of the Open race, Sweeney held the lead in terms of speed ahead of Browne, Dunlop, Shaun Anderson, and Cummins, who were all just tenths of a second apart.

By the end of the second lap, Dunlop, a record 33-time winner of the Isle of Man TT, had jumped into second place with 108.933 to reach that time.

The 36-year-old had taken the lead by the end of the following lap, where Sweeney had a 0.03 second lead over Sweeney, and his advantage over the Skerries rider had only marginally diminished as the riders raced out on their final lap thanks to Sweeney’s 109.796.

In the end, Dunlop continued to lead the affairs in front of Sweeney, who was following him.

On the final bend, Cummins, 39, managed to take home the podium positions, with Anderson and Marcus Simpson completing the top six while Browne’s BPE was taken home.

For the first time since making his only previous appearance at Tandragee in 2007, Manx rider Cummins made the event.

Sweeney kept up the pace until the latter stages when Dunlop was forced to give his rival second best in the final stages of the feature race despite having the early lead from Dunlop.

After lap one, Dunlop increased that lead by 0.02 seconds before Sweeney cut the gap by 0.33 seconds with a new lap record of 110.911.

Browne completed his Supersport double with a dominant start-to-finish victory on Saturday, following up his success on Friday night.

By the third and final lap of five, the Cork rider had a comfortable lead over Dunlop, who finished second behind him by 3.5 seconds to claim the victory.

After having problems with his V2 Ducati in qualifying on Friday, Dunlop had to start from the second wave of riders in 17th place on the grid. However, he came in second place on corrected time with a new lap record of 109.276mph on his final lap, which surpasses his previous best-ever speed in the category from 2011 and finished in 17th place.

The top six included Andy Farrell, Tweed, Anderson, and Cummins.

After a thrilling four-lap battle with Sweeney, Ballymoney’s Tweed defeated Ballymoney’s Tweed in the Supertwins race on Saturday.

After the opening two laps, Tweed held the lead in county Armagh, where Sweeney and the other two ran a further 5.3 miles.

Sweeney, a competitor from the Republic of Ireland, appeared to be in charge going into the final corner, but he ran wide at Bell’s Crossroads, giving Tweed the chance to nip through and win by 1.5 seconds.

The race winner reached 103.25 mph on the fastest lap of the event.

Joe Yeardsley, Simpson, and Neil Kernohan took the final spot on the podium, followed by Barry Furber.

In the classic superbike and lightweight competitions, Anderson won.