Justin Timberlake brought sexy back but Jamie McMurray is bringing the drama back to daytime TV.

The 31-year-old blonde bomber made his soap-opera debut this week on Passions, a campy daytime drama that depicts supernatural adventures between rival families and foes along with the "whose bed have your boots been under" storylines that make every daytime drama a favorite guilty pleasure for all who watch.

Interesting enough, the same ingredients that make shows like Passions popular are some of the same ingredients that make NASCAR one of the most talked about sports on TV.

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Like a soap opera, with a dash of reality television, NASCAR is not without family feuds, tawdry trysts and tussles, bouts with drugs and blunders under the covers.

And like a high school cafeteria, the NASCAR garage is where it all starts; it's where the worst-kept secrets are revealed as soon as they are whispered.

Most industry players will tell you the garage is a real hot bed for gossip and drama; drama for your mama, your sister, your cousin, brother and your uncle, too.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin explained why.

"NASCAR can be that way because we all travel together so much and we know so much about each other's lives," he said. "You know guys talk about each other when they walk away. It's not like other sports where there are only two teams on the field."

NASCAR has an estimated 48 teams socializing and living together every weekend in the close confines of a racetrack, more or less the makings of a college fraternity.

And the more media coverage and hype surrounding the sport and its cast of characters, the more likely Hamlin and other drivers will become topics of conversation. They are increasingly becoming targets for celebrity Web sites, Page 6 and gossip blogs.

The most recent episode of unfounded hearsay and innuendo came when fair-weather fan Paris Hilton reportedly flirted with NASCAR's man candy Kasey Kahne. Then a few short weeks later, reportedly canoodled with Hamlin.

Nothing was founded but it didn't stop tabloid journalist from running with it, namely the NASCAR gossip blog called Tall Glass of Milk, the most well-known in a string of NASCAR gossip blogs to surface in recent years.

Operated by a pop culture blogger in California, Jen, who has asked her last name not be mentioned for fear of retribution, makes it her mission to know which NASCAR drivers are single, married, dating, persona non grata or all of the above.

She knows their breakups and their make-ups. She has positioned her blog as the People magazine of NASCAR.

Hamlin, who Jen follows with regularity, became blog fodder for his recent split with a long-time high school girlfriend and now his current love interest.

"If that site didn't write it, someone else would've," Hamlin lamented.

McMurray initially embraced the celebrity attention early in his NASCAR career but now prefers his privacy.

"I used to want to do reality shows and things like that but now I just think it's odd for other people to know such detail about your personal life," he said. "Some guys expose themselves more than others, but I tend to stay away."

Jeff Gordon is one that embraces the celebrity scene. When he and wife Ingrid released additional photos of their new baby Ella Sophia earlier this month, People magazine had the scoop.

Why the preoccupation with NASCAR drivers' wives and lives?

"Previously, NASCAR drivers weren't considered celebrities and with that status comes a tremendous amount of interest," said Jen, who in 2004 began tracking the pop culture craze inside the sport. "The interest has always been there but there's never been a place where NASCAR fans could get the info."

And the info they are getting, historically, has been taboo, never written about.

In the infancy of the blog, Jen's reach inside NASCAR circles was limited. The blog was hardly mainstream. That was until her blog was linked by another popular blogger, operated by Jade Gurss, public relations representative of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who reveals behind-the-scene tidbits on the sport's most popular driver.

"Once that happened, the entire NASCAR online world found out about it, until then I had flown under the radar," she said.

Tall Glass of Milk touches on an array of topics, but readers beware -- the information is not always accurate or confirmed.

"We call it 'As the Track Turns,'" Jen said. "We discuss which drivers are cheating, which drivers are sharing the same girls and which girls are hanging on to the drivers who don't want to let go of the lifestyle."

The appetite for NASCAR drama and gossip, Jen said, is human nature. Fans want to know anything and everything about their favorite star or athlete, particularly so with young female fans.

"They are constantly writing to me, 'How do I meet a driver, how can I be a driver's girlfriend,'" Jen said.

Questions of those nature make it easy to understand why Liz Allison, author and former NASCAR wife, wrote a book on how to land a driver, The Girl's Guide to Winning a NASCAR Driver.

The influx of NASCAR drivers into the female mind is growing. Drivers are increasingly appealing to women on and off the track. They are in soap operas, romance novels and grocery aisles.

And McMurray is no exception.

The Roush Fenway Racing wheelman turned part-time actor took center stage on NBC's Passions on Wednesday, but it is unclear whether he will have a love interest or become spellbound himself.

The only tidbit released prior to the show was that he was invited to tape a scene where the 31-year-old plays himself, "a real-life NASCAR driver."

"My part in the show was really quick and I only had a few lines to remember, but I have to admit, I was pretty nervous when all the cameras were turned on," he said. "What people don't realize is that it isn't just you and the other actors; it's also like 20 other people behind the cameras. And on top of that, I didn't want to be the one to mess up the shoot."

McMurray isn't the first to star in a daytime drama.

Carl Edwards and Mark Martin made cameo appearances on CBS' Guiding Light in 2005 and Casey Mears set the trend before that when the Hendrick Motorsports driver appeared on the timeless classic, NBC's Days of Our Lives.

In 2004, Mears played himself and was pivotal in helping to locate a missing boyfriend on the show via a message inscribed on his racecar.

"I had never really watched a soap opera before on my own, but my mom watched them when I was growing up," Mears said. "I thought it was interesting to see everything that goes on behind the scenes -- those shows really are a big production. My favorite part was probably delivering the few lines that I had without messing up too bad."

Clint Bowyer, first-time Cup race winner in New Hampshire, doesn't watch soap operas and never has, however, he said drivers landing roles on hit shows is a testament of NASCAR's growth into mainstream pop culture.

"That and it must pay well," Bowyer laughed.

Whether they watch soap operas or play a character on TV, one fact remains: The NASCAR garage is a Petri dish for intrigue.

"Any time you throw a bunch of personalities together and then add travel to the mix, you're going to have a few storylines," Mears said. "But I think everyone does a pretty good job of keeping any drama to a minimum, which is definitely different than a soap opera."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.