RUE AWAKENING: Roy Carroll takes to the streets of France's Le Mans to promote his Greensboro storage business.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: NCTREND: Sports marketing

The sun has set, and ahead stretches a ribbon of darkness. In the Ferrari 488's cockpit, web-belted into a cocoonish seat, Felipe Fraga, his helmeted face lighted by dozens of glowing instruments, chatters in his Brazilian accent with Roy Carroll and his crew in the pits.

Engine screaming, the $400,000 Ferrari streaks down the 3.7-mile Mulsanne Straight, the world's most famous stretch of racing pavement, where cars exceed 200 mph. Except for this special week every June, culminating in this once-around-the-clock race for 62 of the world's fastest cars, it's merely part of France's public road system.

Tonight, only the lightning streak of Fraga's taillights is visible, not the piercing shape of the Ferrari or, on its side, a feisty cartoon bee with the lettering, "Bee Safe Racing."

It's 4,000 miles to Greensboro, headquarters for Carroll, whose Carroll Cos. has made him one of the state's largest real-estate developers. His latest venture is the 40-location Bee Safe Storage and Wine Cellar chain, and this, he says, is marketing at its best.

"We're getting far, far more exposure than the several million dollars we put into Le Mans," he says. Building, crewing and fielding a typical Le Mans pro entry might cost $20 million, but he says it's impossible to put a value on its boost to the team spirit of his company's 500 employees.

Nor Carroll's need for speed.

Though his Le Mans entry was driven by pro Fraga, alternating with Brit Sam Bird and New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen, Carroll, 59, is a successful amateur racer, trained at Ferrari's Italian driving school and competing in the Ferrari Challenge series, racing mainly against other business executives.

For the 24 Hours of Le Mans, arguably the world's most famous race, he teamed with his friend Bill Riley. Mooresville-based Riley Motorsports sells racing technology such as a Formula 1 race car steering wheel that controls 25 functions and exceeds $100,000. It has fielded winning cars for marques like Mercedes and Ferrari in events such as the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, America's premier sports-car race.

Carroll got plenty of exposure for his money in June, drawing worldwide laurels. The Bee Safe car finished fifth in the GTE-Pro class, the second-fastest competition at Le Mans. It was impressive for a "privateer," the racing term for cars that are not financially backed by automakers. The class was won by a factory-sponsored Porsche that covered 2,951 miles in 24 hours. The overall race...