A Shepparton teen allegedly drove at 200km/h on a rural Goulburn Valley road and over 160km/h in a residential Kialla street while being tracked by a police helicopter.
He is also alleged to have been the driver of a car that crashed in Kialla less than two months earlier, in February.
Isaac Hindmarsh, 18, successfully applied for bail in Shepparton Magistrates’ Court.
He is changed with reckless conduct endangering life and driving while disqualified for the April incident, with Mr Hindmarsh’s solicitor Thibaut Clamart indicating his client would be entering a guilty plea to those two charges.
Mr Hindmarsh is also charged with negligently causing injury, three counts of recklessly causing injury, driving while disqualified, drug driving, careless driving, failing to have proper control of a vehicle, driving an unregistered vehicle, driving an unroadworthy vehicle, driving a vehicle without number plates and possessing methamphetamines for the February 26 incident.
Mr Clamart said Mr Hindmarsh planned to contest these charges.
The court was told that in the April incident, Police Air Wing started following Mr Hindmarsh as he drove a Volkswagen Golf on Wahring-Murchison East Rd at Murchison at 9.30am on April 19.
Police on the ground tried to intercept the car after it pulled into a service station at Byrneside an hour later, but Mr Hindmarsh drove off.
The court heard the vehicle reached speeds of 180km/h on Dhurringile Rd and 200km/h in a 100km/h zone on Ferguson Rd at Tatura.
It was then driven to Kialla, where police said it was clocked at 160km/h on Riverview Dve.
Mr Hindmarsh and two passengers were later arrested in Shepparton.
The court also heard that in an incident two months earlier, Mr Hindmarsh was involved in a single-vehicle car crash into a tree at 3.45am on February 24 on Kialla Lakes Dve near Waranga Dve.
Several occupants in the car were injured in the crash.
Police allege Mr Hindmarsh was the driver of the vehicle, but Mr Hindmarsh’s defence counsel argued police could not be sure of that and there were triable issues in this case.
Magistrate Megan Casey said the driving matters were very serious.
However, she said she took into account the fact Mr Hindmarsh was a First Nations person, and had a “special vulnerability” that was related to his cognitive functioning.
She also said that it was “not a foregone conclusion” that he would be sentenced to jail if found guilty.
Ms Casey granted Mr Hindmarsh bail, saying she thought the risks associated with bail could be reduced with strict conditions.
Among the bail conditions are that he comply with the Court Integrated Services Program, not drive, report to police twice a week and abide by a 10pm to 6am curfew.
Mr Hindmarsh’s bail will not start until August 7, which is when he finishes serving a detention sentence for another matter.