Yep, pay to play. You can get out of the tickets, that's not hard, all you have to do is say the old bracket broke and bring in pics with the plate attached.
I don't know how they did it on the Eclipses, but the Talons had holes drilled through the underside of the crash bar with a bracket that came from under the bumper up in front of it, like so:
Doesn't put visible holes in anything, comes off in about a minute if you're going to a show or taking photos.