On August 12th, Dodge began promoting its drag racing event in Michigan called "Roadkill Nights." The timing of the tweets and the promotion couldn't have come at a worse time. The Roadkill Show quickly recognized the error and quickly distanced themselves from the violence the following Monday.
Dodge however, was late to the game, but they did eventually delete the tweets and get on board condemning the connection. Automotive News reports that Dodge e-mailed a statement that included:
"It's unfortunate that such a pure, safe, family friendly automotive event was linked to such a senseless, horrific act."
During the same weekend as the original tweets, Heather Heyer was hit by a Dodge Challenger and killed while counter-protesting white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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The initial backlash on social media was well deserved, and the company eventually deleted the tweets promoting #RoadkillNights.
Daily Stormer praised @Dodge for #RoadKillNights and the murder of Heather Heyer. These are still the top tweets on Dodge's Twitter timeline pic.twitter.com/aT4itwqxbu
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) August 14, 2017
To be fair to Dodge, the tweets promoting the event were likely scheduled far in advance, and the timing of when the tweet came out was almost certainly a coincidence. But it's still a bad look for the company for not immediately recognizing that one of its cars was used to kill a person protesting white supremacists, and it also injured 20 other people.