The fast, high-commitment right-hander created plenty of headlines across the recent Adelaide 500 weekend with four big crashes in Supercars alone.
It was at its bruising best during Friday qualifying, with three cars badly damaged within moments of each other.
Richie Stanaway was first in the wall, followed by Cam Hill and then David Reynolds.
In Sunday qualifying it was Jaxon Evans who destroyed his SCT Camaro.
In all four cases the cars sustained significant damage, creating expensive off-season rebuilds for the affected teams.
Even more concerning was that both Stanaway and Evans were subsequently sidelined due to concussions.
That has prompted questions over whether the corner has become too dangerous and needs to be changed.
One argument is that small mistakes lead to huge, expensive crashes in what some feel is a case of the punishment not fitting the crime.
The added wrinkle of two concussion cases strengthens the calls for change.
On the other side, in an age of endless run-off areas, some argue that we shouldn’t sanitise the remaining race tracks that do have consequences for getting it wrong.
During the Adelaide weekend both arguments were publicly made by prominent paddock personnel, with Garth Tander calling for change.
“I’d like, if we can in the future, to maybe look at a way to just open up the Armco – kerb to Armco gap,” said Tander on the Fox Sports broadcast.
“So maybe open up that Armco if we could a little bit back. But we don’t want to encourage race car drivers that are north of 200 km/h to jump a kerb.
“So we need to find a balance of moving that Armco back, maybe opening up the margin of error a little bit for the driver but also not encouraging the drivers that they’re going to go 15km/h faster there because they’re going to jump over a kerb.
“That’s the challenge. It’s been like this for quite some time, and maybe it is time after this weekend to revise and have another look. Clearly Motorsport Australia and Supercars will do that.
“If we can just give a little bit of that margin so you still do feel that kerb every time you turn in, you just feel that kerb. But if you get it six inches wrong, you’re not writing the race car off. Maybe we can find a happy balance there. That might be all we need to do.
“Let’s not change the architecture of Turn 8, let’s not change the angle of approach, let’s not change the mid-corner speed, let’s not change the exit, because we love it.”
“I don’t know that you need to do anything, to tell you the truth,” he told the broadcast.
“Motor racing is tricky and that’s a tricky corner, and you take the risk and sometimes, when it goes wrong, you pay the price.”
Tander’s suggestion of moving the inside Armco back isn’t entirely straightforward, though, due to a gutter on the inside of the road.
So, should changes be made? Or should Turn 8 be left alone? Cast your vote below.
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