letting timer speed go faster as time passes

I would like to use a timer which goes faster while it runs. I tried the following:

var timerSpeed:uint = 50;
var timer:Timer = new Timer(1000-timerSpeed, numStates);
            timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerimerHandler);
            timer.start();

private function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void{
timerSpeed+=50;
}

but this isn't working since a variable is only created once.

How can I fix this?

Always refer to the official documentation, which is very good: http://www.adobe.com/livedocs/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/utils/Timer.html

Here is an example:

var timer:Timer = new Timer(1000, 10);
            timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerHandler);
            timer.start();

function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void{
    timer.delay = (timer.delay - 50); 

}

If you check, you'll see that at the 10th run, the delay will be 500ms, which is the behavior you want.