Drag race driver jailed for friend's crash

A Victorian drag racer whose friend suffered a serious brain injury in a crash told police it was unfair he was being charged.

He's now been jailed for six months.

For more than eight kilometres Ahsanullah Rezaie and his friend sped along the Monash Freeway at high speed in December 2020.

Other drivers described their cars shuddering as the racers flew past them, city bound between Dandenong and Mulgrave.

One man said the pair in their separate cars were going so fast it seemed suicidal, while his girlfriend tightly gripped her phone believing she'd need to call for help because there was no way they wouldn't crash.

Rezaie and his friend had left a Dandenong shisha lounge about 10.30pm on December 28, after celebrating a friend's birthday.

Both had passengers in their cars. 

The friend was slightly ahead of Rezaie as they entered the freeway but passengers say Rezaie quickly tried to overtake and the vehicles sped up.

Rezaie's passengers were scared by the way he was quickly changing lanes.

As they raced, the friend was in the far right lane. He lost control and his car rotated across the four citybound lanes. The car hit a concrete overpass support, flipped and landed on the roof.

The driver suffered pelvic fractures and traumatic brain injury. 

He spent two weeks in a coma, suffered post-traumatic amnesia and nearly two years on is still suffering the life-changing effects.

He can no longer work as a carpenter, is in too much pain to work as a labourer and has had to stop studying, while undergoing intensive rehabilitation.

Rezaie didn't realise his friend had crashed until friends called him. He drove back to the scene but didn't identify himself to police.

When he was charged days later with negligently causing serious injury he told police he thought it was unfair because he wasn't involved in the crash.

But County Judge Michael O'Connell told Rezaie on Thursday that was not the case.

"You had a great deal to do with this collision and there is nothing unfair at all for you being held responsible for the significant part you had in it," he said.

He sentenced Rezaie to six months behind bars and ordered he complete a rehabilitative road trauma awareness program as part of a two-year community corrections order.