Bumper entry for Around A Pound Tandragee 100 as big names return for famous Irish road race
The 2026 Around A Pound Tandragee 100 has attracted 112 riders including 28 newcomers for the famous Irish road race in Co Armagh, which takes place from June 26-27.
Manxman Conor Cummins, who returned to the challenging 5.4-mile course for the first time in 18 years last June, is entered again in the Superbike and Supersport classes.
Cummins claimed a podium in the Open Superbike race last year on the Burrows Engineering/RK Racing BMW behind Michael Dunlop and Michael Sweeney and finished fourth in the headline Tandragee 100 race, narrowly losing out on another podium result to Banbridge rider Shaun Anderson.
Ramsey man Cummins is running his own BMW machinery this season and had a best finish of 10th at the Isle of Man TT in the Senior race, which was declared a result after one lap following a red flag incident involving Finland’s Erno Kostamo at the 11th Milestone.
Anderson, also fresh from competing at the TT, will return to support his home event this month, when Republic of Ireland rider Michael Sweeney will be the man to beat based on the currently confirmed entries.
Sweeney gave Dunlop a run for his money on the MJR BMW in 2025 and the experienced Skerries man sets a high benchmark.
He smashed the late Dan Kneen’s 2018 lap record (109.609mph) in the Open Superbike race, raising the bar to 109.796mph as he battled with Dunlop, who prevailed by only 0.411s.
Isle of Man TT record-breaker Dunlop later established a new outright lap record at 111.584mph on his way to a more comfortable win the headline Superbike race over Sweeney, who also upped his pace to 110.99mph.
Donegal’s Caomhan Canny, who was injured in a crash at Tandragee last year, joins the Isle of Man’s Marcus Simpson – impressive at the Cookstown 100 in April – plus ex-BSB rider Franco Bourne, Barry Furber, Sean Brolly, James Chawke, Liam Chawke, Joe Loughlin, Ryan Whitehall and Neil Kernohan and Yorkshire’s Joey Thompson.
A stacked race programme includes two Supersport next generation races; Open Superbike, Supertwins, Senior and Junior Support; Classic Superbike and Supersport; Moto3/125GP and Lightweight Supersport/GP250, Classic racing and the Tandragee 100 finale.
The official charity of the race this year is B Positive, which was founded by Adam Watson from Banbridge, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at just seven years old.
Roads close at the Tandragee 100 on Friday, June 26 from 11am to 9pm at the latest, and from 9:30am on Saturday, June 27, reopening no later than 7pm.
A busy summer of road racing lies ahead, with the Kells Road Races in Co Meath taking place from June 20-21 before Tandragee, followed by the return of the Skerries 100 in Co Dublin (July 4-5), the Southern 100 on the Isle of Man at Billown (July 6-9), Walderstown in Co Westmeath (July 18-19), Armoy (July 24-25) and the Mid Antrim 150 at Clough (July 31-August 1).