Heck yeah, rip that shifter up through the hood and back through the trunk when you shift.
Hurst understands one thing, "brute force". Thats why they call these muscle cars, it builds muscle shifting them hee hee. A shifter knows if your afraid of it, so the first thing is to beetch slap it a few times and let it know it's time to rock. I'm being funny here, but seriously, don't baby it, they don't break very easy, there built to take alot of abuse. Back in the day I've shifted a hurst so hard that the knob came off as I striped the threads. "Well", it wasn't a knob, it was a T-handle, you could get more leverage on those. If you do manage to break the fricken thing, take it back and tell them to give you one that won't break, they have a warrenty. The worst ones for breaking were those cheap Mr. Gasket shifters, they were half the price of a hurst but worked in a pinch untill I trashed it. The shifter is like a bullet in a gun and your arm fires it. Fire that baby with force and hit your target.