Competition Backwash?

I submitted a story to the 2008 Summer Romance competition. I don't know why. I have never entered a contest here before and I certainly did not expect to win. If I bought all the tickets in a chook raffle I think I could manage to lose. However, as the days rolled by I was surprised and delighted by the reception my story got,not spectacular but respectable (by my lights, anyway). The phenomenon that really surprised me though was what happened after entries closed. Normally, the number of hits seems to peak at a couple of days and then tail off over a week or so until settling at one or two a day, at least in my case. It may be different for the superstars. This time, when voting began, I was getting 10-20 hits a day on my entry, but what I thought was a tremendous resurgence of interest in my old stuff. Over the last two weeks I got up to 200 hits on each of my older stories, and I have to assume these were real readers, not just the seagulls who drop in, crap, and fly away. Now some may sneer at an extra 200 hits but, for me, that was up to a 20% increase. So my point is, have other writers noticed such a phenomenon? I was loath to mention it earlier in case it looked like a blatant attempt to influence the voting (Who, me? Never!) or have I discovered a sneaky way to lure unsuspecting dupes into reading my mistresspieces. Just enter a contest!
Joanne