OK, we're ready for our first run.
We're starting in ten, nine, eight, seven, six...
Just below us is probably a new FIA world-record-breaking truck.
I say probably, but we're just about to find out, because there it goes.
Fantastic speed. We're chasing it in the chopper. We can't even catch up with it.
The current FIA world land speed champion for a truck
is Swedish truck-racing legend Boije Ovebrink,
and he did his record in 2012 with a special hybrid truck called Mean Green.
Well, now he's out to break his own record in an even meaner creation,
this beast, The Iron Knight.
The Iron Knight has been custom built for one goal alone: performance.
Its 13-litre, mid-mounted Volvo diesel engine
has been given an enormous boost,
which results in 2,400 horsepower and 6,000 Newton metres of torque.
Together with the original I-Shift Dual Clutch gearbox,
0 to 100 kilometres an hour takes just 4.6 seconds.
If you want to be an FIA world land speed record breaker,
you've got to work to very strict rules.
In the case of The Iron Knight, it has to set that record over 1,000 metres,
not once but twice.
You can hear in the background, our truck's coming.
Oh, my goodness.
So, in 2012, Boije set his own record.
What have you done to make this better than Mean Green?
Unbelievably, this truck is a thousand kilos lighter,
and we have 600 horsepower more.
We've pretty much taken a standard gearbox
and packaged it into this fantastic beast behind us.
We're talking about lightness, power, a world-class gearbox.
So all the signs are pointing in the right direction.
Let's clear the course. Let's clear the runway.
He's got to break the record across one kilometre.
Exactly. One kilometre in both directions within the hour.
OK, we're ready for our first run.
We're starting in ten, nine, eight, seven...
So it's quite simple.
All Boije has to do is drive like fury to the end of the track, stop,
turn round and come back again,
and if it all goes to plan, we'll have a new world speed record.
Three, two, one.
Go!
And there he goes. Look at the power.
He's really moving down the track.
He's accelerating like a bullet. I've never seen anything like it.
It's the first time I've been overtaken by a truck in a helicopter.
The first time is in. The time is 21.33.
The current world record time to beat, averaged over two 1,000-metre runs,
is 21.596 seconds.
So here we are at the start of the critical second run.
This is the one that we'll really know whether he's broken the record or not.
OK, second run. Everyone stand by.
He's beginning to pull away from us.
The power from that machine is just phenomenal.
Well, it looked fast to me, but you never can tell.
We're peeling off and we're going to go round in a circle and catch up with him.
The time is in for the reverse run. The time is 21.24.
He's set a new world record. He's done it. He's set a new world record.
The old world record, 21.596, he set himself in Mean Green,
and The Iron Knight has smashed that record.