the skins directory [on my PC = D:\SCi Games\Skins\ ] . i ask, will the game look in this directory first when looking for the car textures? or is this directory purely for backup purposes?

This folder (directory) hosts only Collections skins.
Once the skin applied to the selected car, the textures are "duplicated" in the ../cars/my_car/textures folder.
The game does not look in the folder ../skins, but in the above cited folder.  

What is your problem ?  

Thanks for that
No problem, im fairly new to RSRBR, i have not as yet come to terms with the skins manager, so i edit the car texture .dds files directly [originals], no hassles so far thank goodness. I was contemplating a clean instal of RSRBR to clean things up, just wanted to try it, even though my game works fine, i like to explore the mechanic if you know what i mean  

Regarding the application of skins, you have the Skin Manager utility that is included in the installation of RSRBR, which automates
the installation of textures to the correct folder on the selected car.  
You also have a tutorial to understand the application of skins on cars .