Evidence of groove damage of TT setup?

Is my tracking too light/heavy or is the LP damaged.

I'm sorry, but how do you expect anybody here to answer that? All anybody here can do is offer up posssible reasons.

In addition to the possibilities you listed it is possible that:

1. your cartridge mistracks because it simply can't handle those passages
2. the album was poorly recorded and the distortion is inherent in the disc
3. some other part of your system is overloading. How loud are you playing it?

To answer your original question; you will have to make adjustments and see if it clears up, that is unless the mistracking has damaged the record in which case it will never go away.

Herman, I guess I was expecting possible answers such as: "Distortion in dynamic passages is never a symptom of improper tracking." or "90% of the time distortion during passages is due to groove damage.", etc.

I was looking for general guidelines.

I'm not playing it very loud at all so I don't think it's a systemic issue. I agree that I'll have to eventually make adjustments to see what helps but, was hoping to get oriented into the areas to look first; those that are typically the culprit in exhibiting these symptoms.

Play a few records with dynamic passages you know to be undamaged. If you hear distortion, it's probably an alignment (including VTF) issue. If not, welcome to the world of junk vinyl.

How old is the vinyl? Much of stuff from the '60s and '70s is shot, because people were using "el-cheapo" record players with pizo-electric ceramic cartridges. Tracking at 5+ grams....VTF was adjusted by securing a penny, nickle, or dime above the cartridge :-) The highs were stripped right out of the grove...loss of treble and hiss.

By the '80's, better tables with MM cartridges were used by many more people, as mid-fi spread.

Fatparrot is entirely correct about much older vinyl, especially rock albums, but Sidssp has what discovered what I've also found to be a very plausible workaround. I recently upgraded from my used Shure V15/Denon 103R duo to a brand new Zyx Bloom. The Bloom is clearly riding in a different part of the groove, as surface noise has been greatly reduced on all my LPs. I also have a number of well loved albums damaged either by me in my youthful ignorance or someone else prior to their trip to the thrift store. The majority of these were unlistenable as system resolution has increased, and most are now completely enjoyable.

Of course, as Herman and Bill point out, your alignment needs to be correct before you can make any of these judgments. Gotta use a known good record for that.