Patrick Dempsey signs autographs on Saturday in Lewiston, Maine.

Actor Patrick Dempsey traded his race car for a bicycle at the Dempsey Challenge in Lewiston, Maine.

Dempsey returned to Maine for the two-day, bike-and-run fundraiser that started Saturday after his racing team’s victory at the “Six Hours of Fuji” endurance race in Japan.

The event in Maine, where Dempsey was born, is a fundraiser for The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing, which he and his sisters created in 2008 in partnership with the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. They were inspired by their mother, who died from cancer last year.

Dempsey is best known as Dr. Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd on TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” but he left the show earlier this year. He’s also filming the movie “Bridget Jones’s Baby” in London.

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