If you go back to the fourth picture above, you can see where the break happened and the resulting displacement of metal. The axle threads are not damaged and the axle splines appear to be intact. As for the bearing wear/looseness, I think that is possible. However, after my last track session I pushed, prodded, rolled, levered the wheel to see if I could figure out if there was any issues that would cause the brake dragging. While I am not an expert on bearings, there was no apparent looseness, that I could detect nor any sounds....I am not saying that everything was right. I just didn't see or hear anything wrong. More to come...