Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Podbit · Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy)

Explore episode Jun 24, 2026
Society & Culture
A Daredevil Grandfather and the Family That Shaped Susie Wolff

Susie Wolff (Managing Director of F1 Academy) · Jun 24, 2026 Society & Culture

Susie's maternal grandfather was a works BSA motocross rider in the 1950s who reinvented himself as a commercial diver — then got the bends and became paralysed from the waist down. He responded by taking up paragliding from a wheelchair, breaking his ankle in a crash landing. The Wolff family's relationship with risk wasn't recklessness; it was a tradition of fearless adaptation.

Where this was said

Scotland, the Outer Hebrides and a Childhood Built Around Speed

At 8:28 · chapter starts 6:08

Dax asks about the vibe of growing up in Scotland in the '80s. Susie describes her father loading 9 or 10 kids onto a trailer behind an ATV and driving them through mud on a hill behind the house — everyone hosed down at the end. It was, she reflects, a 'wholesome' and 'outdoorsy' life free from the pressures of city expectations. The town of Arran served as a ferry hub for the Outer Hebrides islands. On the question of boys, Susie says she was completely uninterested — partly because of a throwaway comment a local pub owner called Mario made to her at around 13: 'You'll be pregnant by the time you're 16 and working in your dad's shop.' Rather than crushing her, it became rocket fuel. She decided: absolutely not.

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