A Melbourne driver high on ice and LSD when he ran down two foreign nationals in unprovoked attacks has been jailed.
Shannon Marchant, 22, hit a Kuwaiti national as he crossed a road and later drove onto the footpath to plough his car over Indian national Amandeep Singh.
Marchant told police after his arrest, "What is it with the Indians?" but his barrister said the crimes were not racial attacks.
Victorian County Court Judge Mark Taft said the extraordinary crimes remained unexplained, given prosecutors did not allege a racial motive.
"Your use of a car to inflict injury on not one but two defenceless strangers is highly disturbing," he told Marchant.
Judge Taft on Thursday sentenced Marchant to seven years and six months in jail, with a minimum term of five years.
Marchant dodged trees and poles on the nature strip to hit Mr Singh as he walked home from a friend's house in the early hours of May 21, 2013.
Mr Singh was dragged along under the car for about 50 metres.
A neighbour who heard Mr Singh's screams dragged him into his Noble Park yard as Marchant performed a U-turn and sped back towards his victim.
Just 90 minutes earlier, Marchant had driven into the Kuwaiti student in Preston, throwing the man onto the car's bonnet.
Mr Singh has serious ongoing health issues and spent more than a month in hospital with a fractured shoulder, collarbone, vertebrae, ribs, a broken leg, and a collapsed lung.
The former taxi driver and the other victim, a medical student, have since left Australia.
Defence barrister Danielle Lamovie had told the court Marchant was a drug addict but not a racist.
Marchant, of Meadow Heights, pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury, intentionally causing injury and theft.
