One guy's opinion, your results may vary...
I went with the tomatoes.
The Thunderbirds may be "cool", but they are also heavily photographed.
You want something that's somewhat "unique" instead of a "me too" image.
A couple of the images I throw out due to "dead-center-itis" (windows, ferry, red leaf). Basic photo comp no-no's. Think rule of thirds.
Kid in pool. If the subject were in focus, this would be my choice. But in-focus background is a distraction.
The Polar Bear is a nice shot with good composition... it just doesn't do anything for me. The same goes with the sun/plane tail photo. "What's it about? Why do I care?"
The tomatoes photo is visually interesting, has nice color and is nicely composed. The only tweak I'd make is to crop it tighter (keeping the "chevron" out of the image center) to get rid of the empty corner. The empty space keeps drawing my "focus" when I look at it.
I good place to study what people like is here:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/contest/clip/index.html Look in the "Feature" category. You can use the controls at the lower right side of the screen to view previous month's winners. This contest is purely "peer judged" by the site's membership.