‘The Crew’ Power Rankings: Who’s our favorite character?

"The Crew" is now available for streaming on Netflix! This awesome new show follows the trials and tribulations of Bobby Spencer Racing, as they try to deal with a new boss looking to modernize the team. Because we like power ranking things, we now give you the power rankings of the main characters.

Why is chief mechanic Chuck Stubbs our favorite? Because he’s a straight shooter. His honesty about the race car’s unscrupulous setup is refreshing. There’s no secrecy. He’s like Smokey Yunick but without the part where you try to hide the cheating. But wait -- how can he be honest if he’s a cheater, you ask. Because he’s honest about cheating. And we respect that.

Running a race shop requires someone who is energetic, meticulous and seemingly over caffeinated because it’s quite the time commitment. That’s why office manager Beth Paige is runner-up for our favorite character. When you arrive at the shop in the morning, Beth seems like the kind of person who has already been there for two hours and downing Keurig cups non-stop the whole time.

Crew chief Kevin Gibson, the main character, is impossible not to like. His devotion to the team is admirable, which is not to say he wouldn’t explore opportunities elsewhere should they become available. His determination to evolve and adopt new forms of technology is strong, except that most of the time he doesn’t want to do that whatsoever. He is the duality of man. And the conflict between he and Catherine is why both are tied at No. 3.

Strolling into a brand new, unfamiliar environment and suddenly taking the reins cannot be easy, but that’s the task ahead of Catherine Spencer. A Stanford graduate (a fact she is not afraid to share with her new co-workers), Catherine is dead-set on implementing the data-driven methods gleaned from her education, which sets up a conflict with crew chief Kevin Gibson. That said, if I had a Stanford degree, I’d do the EXACT same thing. I’d be waving that thing around like Jamie McMurray with his new watch after he won the Rolex 24.

Driver Jake Martin is very clearly and obviously no descendant of Mark Martin. While he finishes decent at times, he’s clueless, dim and aloof. Drivers watching the show see this guy and think “Man, that’s a funny character ... but I like, really hope he’s not based on me.” Dude really needs to take his role as figurehead of Bobby Spencer racing more seriously. That said, he is aware of his looks, which from what I understand are about a nine on a scale from 1 to Blaney.

Think you’re high-strung? Sit and observe chief engineer Amir Lajani in the race shop. Comparatively, you’ll soon feel like a Zen practitioner. This poor fellow is nervous 25 hours a day, eight days a week. I mean we get it -- engineering is hard. It requires math and science and calculators and stuff and whatnot. But someone this constantly nervous is bound to make an error in his calculations, which is detrimental to the team. Take every nervous-mom-on-a-pitbox camera shot you’ve ever seen, combine them, and you have Amir.