Yes Doc you can have two identical cars driven by the very same driver racing the clock and get two different times. That's a given. But drag racing an NA SLK automatic vs an NA Crossfire automatic is essentially a point and shoot competition. Put the car into 1st. and let the tranny do the rest. Neither car is a tire smoking monster by nature (unless you want to make it look like it is) but one would think the Crossfire would at least be able to pull a little bit of a hole shot on the Merc right out of the hole thanks to it's massive tires. But as Road & Track pointed out. Getting those massive tires to spin takes more H.P. than it does to get the smaller SLK tires to get rolling. The Stat sheet presented both cars as being identical mechanically, with the same exact H.P. and gear ratios.

KDW4Him, yes they list slalom runs. 66.0 mph for the Crossfire vs 62.8 mph for the SLK.
Skid pad #'s were 0,87 Crossfire vs 0.81 for the Mercedes.

Interestingly, three months later they tested a 6 speed Crossfire and did the slalom at 69.6 mph. with a 0.89 skidpad. (which by the way bested the speed and times of the SRT-6 Roadster they tested). Faster thru the slalom than the mid-engined Ford GT as well. (But don't tell anybody.)