Simple race game?

[Debeli]

I was thinking about making a simple race game no fancy physx engine just the basic stuff so i have a problem because its a race game when you press W you expext movement and that movement to become faster and faster when you hold the key so should i do like when the button is pressed down start a timer and for each second that has passed increase my movment speed a litle bit and if the button is released i would have to reset the timer?
So my question is is this the way its done ?

[freetimecoder]

I think it would be easier to implement a speed variable and increase it when the key is pressed, and decrease it when the key is not pressed.

greetings