If I was going to spend $260 on an 8s esc, I would definitely not buy that. Unfortunately, there aren't very many ESC's out there that you can run as overkill for 1/8 speedrunning so that you don't have to worry about current limiting or other throttling issues. Alien power or VXP on ebay or MGM are the main contenders. Expensive and little outside information on any of them. I tend to judge a product by the effort they put in their website so MGM wins that category. MGM also has a lot of information about each model of ESC on their website and they offer extra features like waterproofing, dual fans, sensors and programming extras, etc.
I prefer to take the simple route and stick to Castle because of their warranty.