Sports
Burlington is the home of the Burlington Bees baseball team, a member of the Class A Midwest League. The Bees play at Community Field, which underwent extensive renovation in 2005.
34 Raceway in West Burlington is host to weekly auto racing events through the spring, summer and fall. The track is a 3/8-mile, semi-banked, clay oval built in 1966 and is owned by Jeff Laue.
Burlington hosts the Snake Alley Criterium, one of the most physically challenging races in the Midwest. The annual event is held on a 15-block course, with differences in elevation from 555 feet to 678 feet. The course is entirely on city streets, mostly in the downtown commercial area. A one block-long climb is on the historic brick street named Snake Alley. The 276-foot-long Snake Alley has five switchbacks in a 60-foot climb. The average grade is 12.5 percent in that one block.
Twice, Burlington has been the finishing point for RAGBRAI, the annual bicycle ride that starts at the Missouri River in western Iowa and ends in eastern Iowa at the Mississippi River.
Read more about this topic: Burlington, Iowa
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)