Race car drivers bring bears, smiles to hospitalized kids

Theodore Roosevelt, children receiving treatment at Toledo’s ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital, and NASCAR drivers don’t seem to have much to do with each other, but unlikely as it sounds, they came together Tuesday.

The day was National Teddy Bear Day, which is celebrated annually on Sept. 9, the date the 26th president of the United States went on a hunting trip and famously refused to shoot a bear cub. That incident in 1902 inspired a political cartoon that led to the creation of the stuffed animals that bear Theodore Roosevelt’s nickname.

Two Toledo-based race car drivers, Gabrielle Grigsby and Kyle Crump, and officials from the ARCA Menards Series — the premier division of the Automobile Racing Club of America — were on hand to greet hospitalized children and brighten