Wife’s Gift Drove Him Into Business : Within a year of opening box and finding a slot car, John Androsko found his long-awaited niche when he started Uncle Jax Trax raceway.

Every now again, a holiday gift comes along that can change your life. Just ask John Androsko.

A little more than a year ago, his wife gave him a colorful miniature race car for Christmas. More specifically, it was a slot car--a tiny, electrically powered speedster that can be run only on a special track.

Androsko took the car to a slot car track near his Fullerton home. Racing the car through hairpin turns and at blinding speeds down a straightaway, the 33-year-old became hooked.

“After I got that car, three weeks later I knew I wanted to own a raceway,” Androsko said.

Now the miniature motor racing fan has his wish. In November, 1994, he opened Uncle Jax Trax in a Lake Forest shopping center--and has already developed a loyal following of slot car fanatics.

Androsko--most of his customers call him Jack--set up his race courses in a building formerly occupied an aerobics studio. It was a fitting conversion, considering that family-oriented, couch potato activities like slot car racing and miniature golf are increasingly taking the place of pursuits like jogging and weightlifting with aging baby boomers.

Slots cars, moreover, hold a nostalgic allure. Most of Uncle Jax’s older customers say they visited such tracks back in the 1960s and ‘70s when slot car racing grew to fad status, and were glad to see Androsko’s track open in Lake Forest. Now they race side-by-side with their own children or other youths.

“My son can do it with me. There’s no (age) barrier in here,” said Kirk Anderson, 38, of San Clemente, who was trying out the drag strip with his wife, Lisa, and his 5-year-old son. “It’s a good stress reliever.”

Aficionados like Anderson are helping to revive slot car racing with a new breed of model cars that are faster and aerodynamically designed to hold themselves to the track better than any of the best cars from a generation ago.

But the basic concept hasn’t changed: The cars follow a groove in the track and their speed is adjusted by a pistol-grip controller.

Androsko said that soon after getting his first car, he started visiting raceways to learn everything he could about slot cars and the business.

He said he had always wanted to be his own boss. “I just didn’t know what business I wanted to own,” he explained.

He certainly has had plenty of exposure to different endeavors. Androsko said he has held 22 jobs in 10 years--from car sales to boat rentals.

Androsko had raced slot cars as a kid, but since turned his interest to model trains and by chance ducked his head into a raceway one day while his wife was along. “She had a big problem getting me out of there,” he recalled, and hence, the slot car for Christmas.

She never could have guessed, however, that Androsko would be spending every waking moment inside racetracks.

With his newfound knowledge, he scraped together more than $50,000 from savings and credit card borrowings and purchased an Orange hobby and slot car operation.

Instead of simply operating in Orange, Androsko did some homework.

He discovered that Lake Forest’s demographics had one of the highest concentrations of kids in the county, just the kind of family market that would support a slot car raceway.

He figured that he could earn back his investment within a year.

So far, Androsko said, he is running about 10% behind his projections, but is grateful for the outpouring of support he has received from slot car boosters who helped him build tracks and remodel his current building.

Customers appreciate the track, too. Sandy Showalter of Lake Forest said her husband and four children have become fans.

“They all got (slot) cars for Christmas,” she said. Even her 2-year-old likes watching the cars going around the track.

Showalter said they stop by Uncle Jax three times a week. And cost is a relatively minor consideration since, at $2 to rent a race car lane for 15 minutes, it’s a relative bargain.

As she spoke, her 12-year-old son, Chris, was turning laps with his model Volkswagen dune buggy. He said he likes slot cars because they are “nothing but action. . . . I really like cars, motor things, things that go.”

At the other end of the age spectrum, 50-year-old Fred deAvila of Lake Forest said that his entire family came down after their Christmas party last month and raced until 1:30 a.m., 90 minutes past closing time.

Since then, “we managed to skip a couple football games” to come and race slot cars--not easy, he said, considering his family’s devotion to the gridiron.

He said he has spent about $250 on cars and equipment.

Slot car racing, the sales consultant declared, “is better than a tavern.”